


Whisper in the Dark

by VelkynKarma



Series: Specters in Space [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Creepy things, Gen, Graphic Injury, Gruesome Imagery, Horror, Illusions, Injury, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Monsters, Season 2 compliant, Violence, au after season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: A month after the liberation of another planet, team Voltron is called back to investigate the disappearance of many of its newly freed citizens. It should be routine. It shouldn't be a problem.But then the paladins of Voltron start disappearing, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Day #3 of the PlatonicVLDWeek 3.0: Tricks! 
> 
> This is also a follow-up to a prior fic, _Pillar in the Dark._ You may want to read that one first but can probably get by without. It is not canon compliant for anything after season 2, however some bits of information from seasons 3-4 do make their way in (mostly names). 
> 
> Heed the tags--this one is definitely a horror fic! But I'll be posting **all four chapters tonight,** so stick around and enjoy! Happy Halloween :)

The deeper into this place they get, the less Keith starts to like it.  
  
Not that he really ever _liked_ it to begin with. Koristrotzan’s got some beautiful natural locations—towering forests, glimmering mountain lakes, relaxing looking meadows. But the swampland of Koristereletrixx—‘the silent heart of Koris’—is not one of them. The swampland stretches for literally hundreds of miles, and even with the advanced technology of dozens of space-dwelling visitors, no one has ever pierced the exact center of the place to know what’s in it.  
  
Keith likes nature, and the quiet, calm peace it offers, but even he would avoid this place normally if he’d been given the choice. It stinks—a disgusting combination of decay, swamp gas, and the strange scents of the oddly perfumed plants and flowers that exist on this planet. It’s humid, and disgusting enough that he’d taken off his oppressive helmet ages ago and hooked it to his belt. Even without he can feel his hair sticking to his skin.  
  
Even walking is a chore. In some places the ground is firm and solid, but in others it’s deceptively deep and muddy, and stepping in it can sink one’s foot up to the ankle or even halfway up one’s shin in disgusting muck. In other areas the ground is completely flooded with stinking, murky water, choked with dead leaves and coated in some kind of algae, and containing who only knows what that’s still alive. Wading across it is a nightmare, sometimes coming up as high as his chest. Keith had taken to using his jetpack to hop to different islands of muck in the water, or to boost himself to trees so he could crawl across the branches instead.  
  
He’s pretty sure his armor will never be white again, even so.  
  
Koristereletrixx hadn’t been anybody’s idea of a ‘fun’ mission, but they hadn’t had much choice in the matter. A month ago, they’d freed Koristrotzan’s people from Galra occupation. The people had been delighted to finally be free, and had considered Voltron and its paladins their saviors. They had accepted Allura’s gift of a communicator, and an invitation to the Voltron Alliance, with pride.  
  
But a month after their rescue, they had contacted Voltron once more, begging for help. Ever since their liberation from the Galra, their people had begun to go missing. They suspected that there was still a Galra post somewhere on the planet, kidnapping their people as slaves and harrying them to prevent them from providing resources and assistance to the Voltron Alliance.  
  
That had struck Keith and the others as strange. Coran had done a thorough scan with the B.L.I.P. sensors of the planet to ensure all Galra equipment and lifeforms were gone from Koristrotzan, and it had come back with the all-clear. But Shiro had decided they would all head back anyway, long enough to check in on the situation. If people were disappearing, perhaps Voltron could find them.  
  
Which brought them here, trudging through the disgusting expanse of Koristereletrixx. Coran had done another search and proved once again that there were no Galra hiding on the rest of the planet, but Koristereletrixx’s deep tree cover, sensor-disrupting wildlife, and natural gases make it impossible to scan its expanse. And the greatest concentration of missing people had been from the towns and villages bordering the massive swamp.  
  
At first it had been individuals—scouts and hunters, lone travelers, easy targets. Later smaller groups of Korissites had disappeared. Then entire small villages and towns had simply disappeared without a trace. The paladins had walked through one of the now-empty settlements on first arriving, and it had been unsettlingly like every living being there had gotten up and walked away, never to return. No signs of struggle or kidnap, which struck all of them as odd.  
  
It had put an unsettling feeling in Keith’s stomach, all too familiar. Based on Hunk’s expression at the time, he’d been thinking along the same lines—back to their nearly fatal trip to the hunk of rock Lance had since deemed ‘Bermuda Planet.’ But Allura and Coran had checked the planet’s quintessal levels at their urging, and nothing had seemed off about it. Nor had Keith experienced the nauseating headache or awful emptiness in his mind that he’d felt when they’d wandered the deserted streets of that planet’s city.  
  
Whatever’s going on here, it doesn’t seem to be the same reason as it had been there—unsettling as the situation is. And whatever it is, it’s clear, based on the pattern of disappearances, that the source is somewhere in Koristereletrixx.  
  
“This sucks,” Pidge grouses.  
  
“I know it’s a terrible mission and you hate the outdoors,” Keith mutters, irritated. It’s been a disgusting, sweaty, sticky three vargas now that they’ve been searching, and both of them are a little on edge.  
  
“Yes, that too, but I mean this literally _sucks_ ,” Pidge says with a hiss. “I’m getting pulled down—help, quick—“  
  
Keith stares for a moment, and then glances down at her feet, which are quickly sinking deeper into the disgusting mire despite her efforts to wiggle free. “Oh, crap—here.” He locks wrists with her and manages to drag her out of the mess onto the solid patch of land he’s standing on, although not without difficulty. She hadn’t been kidding; the mud and muck suctions on with incredible resistance, refusing to let her go.  
  
“Thanks,” Pidge breathes a sigh of relief once free. “Ugh! This entire place is a minefield of gross and deadly. I can’t even build a decent map of the place with satellites or Korissite maps.” She activates her gauntlet computer and taps up a few commands, but the resulting map is a fuzzy, chaotic mess that’s practically illegible. “Damn it! How does a swamp like this go unexplored for literally thousands of years?”  
  
“There are still places on Earth that have never been explored,” Keith points out. “And we don’t need to map all of it. We just need to find those missing people.”  
  
Though, privately he has to admit their chances are doing so feel like they’re getting slimmer by the minute. This place is enormous, and the time they can make is poor at best. With no leads and no place to start, Keith’s not even sure what their chances at success are.  
  
“We’re searching blind,” Pidge says, frustration clear and sharp in her voice. “This place is miles and miles wide. They could be literally _anywhere_ in here.”  
  
“All kinds of villagers disappeared, though,” Keith counters. “Not just fit, healthy adults, but children and elders. They can’t have gotten far on their own, and the scale at which they disappeared is just too big for any kind of capture job if the Galra or some other group is hiding in here. You heard Shiro—that means trails for equipment to transport large numbers of captives, or that the operation has to be fairly close to the borders.”  
  
“Unless they all wandered in here and suffocated in _that_ mess,” Pidge says grimly, glancing back at the sticky muck she’d been wallowing in a few ticks prior. It’s perfectly smooth again, and to the untrained eye, looks like solid ground.  
  
Keith clenches his jaw at that. It’s a grisly possibility, but not an unrealistic one. “Let’s just finish the sweep of this area,” he says instead. “At least we can cover the ground. Even if we don’t find something, maybe Shiro, Lance and Hunk will.” They’d split up for a reason, to try and cover as much ground as possible.  
  
It was a good plan, of course. Shiro’s usually were. Still, Keith hadn’t missed the significant look Shiro had given him, before sending Keith off with Pidge. Keith reads the intent loud and clear: even though Shiro is back, he’s still maintaining Keith’s presence as an authority figure to the others one at a time. Well, fine. Keith will do the best he can, just like he had when Shiro had gone missing, but Shiro had better not think about going anywhere any time soon.  
  
They push forward farther into the swampy mess, jump-flying across dirty water and slugging through stinking mud. Keith starts to feel the slow burn in his muscles that are the first signs of exhaustion, and every part of him feels uncomfortable and sticky. He _really_ doesn’t like this place; every part of it just sets his teeth on edge, the farther in they manage to get. The smell of swamp gas and the disgusting perfumes of the odd flora clog his nose and throat, and become so oppressive he can practically taste it coating his tongue. He can’t imagine how any of the locals or any slaving team could stand to be in here as long as they have been. He can’t wait to be out of this place.  
  
_Just a little further,_ he thinks. _Just a little further and we’ll find an answer_. He’s sure of it.  
  
Pidge is clearly the same. The further into the swamp they push, the more she starts to trail behind. If Keith finds the place difficult to navigate, then for Pidge it’s pure torment. She’s agile and clever, but the heat and the footing are awful on anyone not accustomed to outdoor travel, and Pidge is paying for her fascination with computers now. She swears and complains foully, cursing every time she stumbles or gets her leg stuck in a thick muck pit, or splashes herself with muddy water that comes halfway up her chest.  
  
But the exhaustion gradually starts to take its toll, and after a while she starts lagging behind, stumbling more, swearing less. Keith can see the dazed look of one too tired to give a damn on her face, although she’d never ask him to stop or beg for a break. That’s just not who Pidge is.  
  
When she goes completely silent, Keith is just about ready to call for a halt anyway. He’s tired too, and could use even five minutes for a breather. He turns to tell Pidge they can stop at the two fallen trees just a few feet ahead of them. It will be a decent place to sit and catch their bearings.  
  
Pidge isn’t there anymore.  
  
Keith looks around in confusion. She’d been there just a few doboshes ago. He’d seen her. She’d been lagging behind, but he hadn’t lost her. He hadn’t heard her jetpack fire either—in fact, Pidge had been almost eerily quiet for the past ten doboshes, not even grumbling or swearing when spattered with mud or stumbling through muck. It was how Keith knew she’d had to be exhausted.  
  
“Pidge?” He calls. “Pidge, where’d you go?”  
  
There’s no answer. Suddenly worried, he treks back across the swampland to where he last saw her. There are her footprints in the mud, already smoothing out again to resemble a perfectly solid surface. They lead into the waist-deep water. Suddenly alarmed, Keith throws his helm back on and seals it closed, then ducks below the surface. The water is murky and difficult to see through, but he can see enough to know there’s no body.  
  
He surfaces again, ignoring the slimy, gross feeling of swamp water and mud trickling down his back and neck into his cuirass. “Pidge?” he calls again, louder this time. “Pidge, if you can hear me, signal!”  
  
Nothing.  
  
Keith taps the communications in the helm to active, but the same static as before reaches his ears. They’d known going in communications would be blown—the same properties in the swamp that kept it from being scannable by most sensors also kept their communications from working. That was why Shiro had insisted on teams, so everyone had backup on hand, rather than going solo. But it means if they’re split up, Keith has no way to find his partner.  
  
Like now.  
  
He slogs his way out of the stinking water and stands on a muddy bank, trying to think. Pidge was probably fine. She was smart, and she was a paladin of Voltron. She’d been tired, sure, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t handle herself. In fact, this is just like Pidge, anyway. As one of their stealthiest team members, Pidge _did_ have a habit of disappearing and reappearing in a more opportune position for combat. It was how she’d run circles around Sendak and Haxus, and how she’d defeated that magic-slinging princess on the hunt for the Yalexian Pearl. She was probably just on to something and hadn’t been able to communicate it to Keith before disappearing. Pidge was like that.  
  
Still, something about it sends icy prickles down Keith’s spine. It’s like Pidge, sure, but it doesn’t seem right anyway. He doesn’t like it. Especially not when they’re trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of several settlements into this very swamp.  
  
“This isn’t funny, Pidge!” he yells. “Get back here now! We can’t afford to split up!” He respects her instincts, and he’s self-aware enough to know he’s got no business lecturing her for running off to handle things her own way. But something in his gut tells him he should not let his eyes off of Pidge, and Keith listens to _his_ instincts too.  
  
He needs to find her. Fast. He’s not sure why, but he has a feeling if he doesn’t, something terrible is going to happen.  
  
_Go farther in,_ a little voice in the back of his head tells him. _Go deeper. The answers will be there. That’s the way she’d have gone._  
  
He takes about six steps before he stops to reconsider that instinctual decision. Should he really go deeper? There’s no real proof that he has that Pidge would go that way. Hell, she might have backtracked to try and reconfigure her blurry map. His best bet would be to go back and try to find her tracks again, even with the mud smoothing over. See if he can find some sort of trail, some conclusive evidence to follow. Pidge might not be on-mission anymore, especially if she’d wandered off in an exhausted daze, or gotten hurt somehow.  
  
_Go deeper in,_ he thinks again, stronger. _Towards the center. I can find her there for sure._ He’s absolutely certain of it.  
  
But that’s not what Shiro would do, is it? He’s not sure. God, he wishes Shiro were here right now to make the call. He’s had some practice at leading, but this…he’s not sure what to do.  
  
_Why aren’t you sure?_ he wonders. _Go deeper. It’s that simple._  
  
_But be cautious,_ he warns himself warily. _Something’s not right._  
  
That seems enough of a compromise for his uncertainty. He takes a few more steps farther into the swamp, and feels a little better about settling on a decision the moment he does. But he settles his hand close to his thigh, where his red bayard is stored, and checks with his other hand to be sure his knife is still secured at his waist. Something is definitely going on here, but it won’t catch him unawares.  
  
He pushes deeper into the swamp, now keeping a sharp eye out for Pidge. She’ll be difficult to spot even if she’s not trying to hide—the white of her armor is dirtied from all the mud enough that it won’t stand out anymore, and the green and black will blend in just fine. If she is trying to be stealthy, he won’t have a chance of spotting her. He hopes there’s no reason for her to hide out here.  
  
He doesn’t see Pidge, or any of the other missing villagers. But five doboshes later, he does see something else…he thinks. Something bright glimmers at the corner of his eye, but when he turns to look directly at it, it vanishes. Frowning, he goes to inspect the area he’d thought he’d seen the bright spot come from, but when he reaches it, nothing is there. No person, no tracks, no sign of anything that might have caused that little flash of light.  
  
“Not funny, Pidge,” he yells loudly. “We don’t have time for pranks. Something in this swamp is dangerous. Get out here!”  
  
But Pidge doesn’t come out at all.  
  
Keith keeps moving, but two doboshes later he sees the glimmer out of the corner of his eye again. And once again, when he turns to face it, the glittering vanishes, and there’s nothing at all there to cause it.  
  
_Swamp gas,_ Keith tells himself. _Same thing happens on Earth. Just ignore it._  
  
He tries, but the third time it appears, he swears this time it moves—a swirling little flash of energy that darts just outside his vision and farther away into the trees. And a fourth time, dancing just on the edge of his peripherals. And a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, always flitting away too quickly to be natural, moving like something alive. And with each movement comes the uncanny sensation that he’s being watched. Being hunted.  
  
It sends a chill up his spine, and he feels uneasy about this place all of a sudden. Not because of the heat or the smell or the muck, but for something else. Something he can’t put his finger on, but it bothers him.  
  
_Stupid,_ Keith tells himself. _You’re not Lance, scared of dumb ghost stories. You’re acting like a coward. Uneasy over nothing._  
  
But still, Keith trusts his instincts over anything else. He’s _sure_ something is wrong here. He’s just not sure what.  
  
“You’re not going crazy,” he tells himself out loud. His own voice breaks the relative silence of the swamp and feels shockingly loud by comparison, but it feels real to hear it. “Something weird is happening here.”  
  
Except he could be. He _could_ be losing his mind, and he’d never even know it. He hadn’t understood what had happened to him before, on ‘Bermuda planet.’ Hunk had been forced to drag him out of there because he hadn’t recognized the danger himself, and he hadn’t understood what was happening to him. He can’t trust his own interpretation of the world. Who’s to say he’s not losing it again, right now? There’s no one here this time to ground him.  
  
That thought is terrifying.  
  
_Maybe your senses were messed up, but your instincts never were,_ he reminds himself. _You knew something was wrong from the beginning there, even if you didn’t understand it. You know something is wrong now. Use that. Use anything you can._  
  
Because he knows now that something dangerous is happening here…and Pidge, more likely than not, has already found it.  
  
_Maybe I should follow,_ he thinks, as another ghostly little glimmer flickers to his left and vanishes. _Try to figure out what they are. Where they’re going._  
  
_Animals,_ he tells himself. _Bugs. Don’t get distracted from the mission. Find Pidge. Find the villagers. Find Shiro’s team, and get out._  
  
_But following would help find Pidge and the others, wouldn’t it? What if Pidge had seen one of these things, and followed it? Surely, following the trail back would be the best bet._  
  
“No,” Keith snaps out loud, frustrated with his own indecision. “No. Just following a couple got me turned around. I need to stay on-target. Those things aren’t the goal.”  
  
Saying it out loud, hearing his own voice make the plans, seems to help him finally decide. Out loud the words, the decision, feel more real than when buried in his own jumbled, disjointed thoughts. He keeps pushing forward, and ignores the little flashes as they come.  
  
Ignoring them is easier said than done. As if emboldened by his decision, they start to appear more often. They flit through the trees faster and appear larger, stay for half a tick longer than before, cycle through half a dozen colors. Keith’s not sure if it’s something alive or swirls of energy or little dancing flames in the gloom; he can still never manage to look directly at one.  
  
Whatever the case, it’s like these things are trying to taunt him, dancing just out of reach, laughing silently. _I’m real,_ they almost seem to say. _I’m very real. Won’t you come follow? Don’t you want to know what happened to your friend? I have the answer. I can show you._ And sometimes it even sounds like the right move. Why _shouldn’t_ he follow them? He might find his friend. They might lead him to the answer. He wants to find her.  
  
And yet every time they appear, that warning little voice in the back of his head grows stronger still. _Not right,_ it says. _This isn’t right. Be cautious._ And so, despite how good an idea it feels to follow them, he grits his teeth and does his bet to not look at them, and keeps pushing forward in his own way.  
  
He pushes on for another half a varga, getting increasingly more worried at the lack of any signs of Pidge, when he hears something splashing through water nearby. “Hang on,” Keith hears, “Wait, slow down for me, wait!”  
  
“Hunk?” Keith’s startled to hear the Yellow paladin’s voice. Hunk is supposed to be far away from here with the other half of Team Voltron—there shouldn’t be any reason for him to be this close to Keith’s location. Unless Keith had gotten so turned around by those distracting glimmers in the trees he’d wandered in completely the wrong direction?  
  
Something about that doesn’t seem to quite line up, but it doesn’t matter. Hunk is with Shiro’s team. Keith can meet up, explain how Pidge had vanished, and hopefully get some backup finding her. Shiro will know what to do.  
  
But when Keith hop-flies over a wide expanse of water and staggers through a particularly sticky patch of muck, he turns around a set of thick trees to see only one human, not three. Hunk flounders awkwardly in another wide area of waist-deep water, wading through it slowly as he makes for the far edge. Shiro and Lance are nowhere to be seen.  
  
“Hunk!” Keith calls, reaching the far bank first. “Hunk, use your jetpack. It’s a little easier to move.”  
  
“Keith!” Hunk looks happy to see him—or as happy as he can, when he looks dazed with exhaustion, anyway. He fires up his jetpack, and the water releases him with a squelching splash. Hunk lands on the bank next to Keith, and Keith hastily grabs his arm to hold him upright before he completely collapses.  
  
“Easy,” Keith says. “Take a second. You look tired.”  
  
“Can’t wait,” Hunk says, pushing himself upright. “Need to keep going. It’s really important.”  
  
“It can wait a few seconds,” Keith says, forcing an edge of command into his voice. Of all of them, Hunk was usually the most amicable about letting Keith take charge; he’s sure to listen. “I’ve got important news. Where’s Shiro? And Lance?”  
  
Hunk blinks once at the question. He looks around himself, as if noticing for the first time that he’s alone. After a moment, he offers a contemplative, “Huh. I don’t know.” And then, seemingly unconcerned, he turns back in the direction he’d been first heading in, and takes another few steps deeper into the swamp.  
  
The whole thing sends alarm bells clanging in Keith’s head. Until now he’s had uneasy feelings, little instinctive warnings that something’s _not right_ , but now he’s absolutely certain of it. Hunk would _never_ so casually dismiss the disappearance of his team. Hunk is a chronic worrier; he inevitably gets nervous over more than he should, to the point where the others have to talk him down from unnecessary panic. Nor would he ever turn his back on and abandon a missing team mate once he’s noticed their absence. Hunk has voted for running from a fight more than once, but he’s also always one of the first to insist on rescuing or protecting his friends, and has been bold enough to challenge Keith on that.  
  
Something is very wrong. Keith’s still not sure if he can trust everything he’s seeing, but he is sure of that.  
  
“Shouldn’t we find them first?” Keith asks, putting himself in Hunk’s way. “Isn’t it weird that they’re missing?”  
  
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Hunk says dismissively. He tries to sidle around Keith.  
  
The alarm bells get louder. Keith sidesteps once to stay in Hunk’s way, although he’s careful to keep his movements as unaggressive as possible. “But shouldn’t we check?” he insists. “When’s the last time you remember seeing them? People are disappearing in here, remember? They could be hurt, or caught by…whatever is doing that.”  
  
“They’ll be _fine_ ,” Hunk says, a little more insistently now. He tries to step around Keith again. Keith gets in the way again. “Listen, this is really important Keith, we have to help them—“  
  
“Who?” Keith asks, frowning. “Shiro? Lance?”  
  
“No, _them_ ,” Hunk insists, pointing over Keith’s shoulder.  
  
Keith glances behind him. Distantly through the trees, he sees another glimmering flash. It looks bigger than the others he’s seen, large enough to be a small child perhaps, or a smaller alien race. It flickers around the trunk of a tree and vanishes.  
  
“They need our help,” Hunk says, still insistent. He’s not looking at Keith anymore; he stares over Keith’s shoulder towards the mysterious whatever-it-is. After another tick, he takes another step forward, sidling around Keith and stumbling with exhaustion. His expression looks worn and dazed from fatigue, but he’s clearly focused on this.  
  
“Hunk,” Keith hisses, low and insistent, as he puts himself in Hunk’s path again, “You need to stop, _now._ I don’t think that’s real. If it is, it’s up to no good.”  
  
Hunk frowns. “This is important, Keith. We’re paladins. We have to help people. _You_ said it too!”  
  
“I know, and I meant it, but those aren’t real people. We have to help _Shiro,_ ” Keith insists. “And Lance. And Pidge. They need our help _now_. Hunk, _come on_ , focus.”  
  
Hunk still isn’t quite looking at Keith, but his expression changes to a tired scowl. “Oh, so now you get to decide who the real people are, is that it? We can save your Galra buddy in the Weblum, but when these people need our help we can’t?”  
  
“What?” That hurts, but Keith tries to shake it off. Something’s wrong with Hunk. He’s not seeing things clearly. He probably didn’t mean it. “No, that’s not what I’m saying! Hunk, something is _wrong._ Something is wrong about this place. _Listen_ to me.”  
  
“They need our help. We have to _hurry_ Keith. They don’t have long—“  
  
_“Hunk.”_ Keith’s getting frustrated, but forces himself to take a deep breath. _Patience yields focus. Think._ “Hunk, look me in the eye. Did these people ever actually, physically come up and ask you for your help to save them?”  
  
Hunk looks down at him as asked. They lock eyes, and for the first time Keith realizes there’s more than exhaustion in his expression. Hunk’s eyes are glazed over and distant, unfocused. Keith wonders all of a sudden if he’s even entirely there, right here, right now, with full control of his own actions. This isn’t right. His instincts all but _scream_ it.  
  
_Unless you’re wrong_ , part of him thinks. _Unless you’re going crazy again. Unless nothing you’re seeing is real, and nothing you’re sensing can be trusted. Last time Hunk was the only one who knew what was going on. What if that’s happening again? You should trust him, shouldn’t you? You should go with him._  
  
_No!_ No, that’s not right either. He’s _sure_ of it. He’s _sure._  
  
“I…” Hunk’s voice snaps Keith out of his own head, and he curses himself for losing his own focus. He watches Hunk carefully, and for a moment almost feels relief when the yellow paladin’s brow furrows slightly in confusion. “I don’t think… _did_ someone…”  
  
For just a second, the glaze in Hunk’s eyes seems to flicker. But before Keith can reach it, pull Hunk farther out of his own confusion, it settles again, and Hunk shakes his head, breaking eye contact. “I know it’s real,” he insists instead. “They’re scared. They keep calling for us to follow. Keith, they’re going to die if we don’t hurry! We have to go _now!_ ” He takes another step forward.  
  
“No, we don’t.” Keith’s done with the subtle approach. Whatever’s happening here, he needs to get Hunk away from it first. He twists aside easily as Hunk takes a step forward, and locks both his arms around one of Hunk’s. He tugs, pulling Hunk back a few steps. “We’re getting out of here. You just need to trust me on this, okay? We’re getting out, we’re going to regroup, figure out a plan, and then come back and rescue the others. I think that—“  
  
_“No!”_ Hunk digs in his heels in the muck, and even slippery as it is, he’s able to stop Keith from dragging him back.  
  
Keith tugs on his arm again, insistent. He’d been able to drag Hunk towards a dangerous Robeast fight in the past that Hunk hadn’t been interested in participating in. He’s sure he can haul Hunk out of this mess now, back to a safer distance. “We don’t have time for this, Hunk! I’m trying to save your life!”  
  
 But Hunk proves impossible to move if he doesn’t want to go anywhere, and Keith belatedly realizes that he’d only been able to drag Hunk towards that Robeast battle because Hunk hadn’t been fighting him on it. Now he’s putting all his weight and muscle into resisting Keith’s grip—and while Keith is a much more skilled martial artist and combatant in a fight, there’s absolutely no way he can out-muscle Hunk in a contest of plain strength.  
  
He curses under his breath as Hunk starts taking slow steps forward again. Keith’s boots slip on the mud beneath their feet and provide no traction with which to resist, and he’s dragged along like a dead weight hanging off of Hunk’s right arm. “Hunk! Damn it, _stop!_ That’s not what you think it is! I think it’s trying to _kill_ you!”  
  
But Hunk doesn’t stop. And Keith’s not sure what to do now. He doesn’t really want to hurt Hunk, and Hunk’s not really fighting him. He’s a victim here, somehow; Keith just needs to figure out how, and how to save him.  
  
“Let _go_ , Keith!” Hunk says. He doesn’t even look in Keith’s direction; his gaze is constantly locked on something in the distance. “Let _go._ We have to _help_ them. I can’t believe you’d just _abandon_ people who need our help—listen to them calling and you’re just ignoring that—that’s cold, Keith, I thought you were better than that—“  
  
“What do you think I’m doing _right now?_ ” Keith snaps, panting hard. He’s still struggling to restrain Hunk, but Hunk is too bulky to get a good arm lock at this angle, and Keith’s afraid of losing him if he lets go. “C’mon, Hunk! Snap out of it! _Think!_ Something about this isn’t _right!_ It’s like that planet, c’mon, _focus_ —”  
  
“Let _go!_ ” Hunk snaps his arm hard suddenly, trying to shake Keith off. He elbows Keith in the chest, and although Keith’s mostly protected by his armor, it’s still a hefty blow. The breath is knocked out of him and he loses his grip on Hunk’s arm, crashing back into the sticky mud.  
  
By the time Keith manages to regain his breath and claw his way free of the muck with a loud squelch, Hunk is gone, vanished into the trees.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

“Damn it!” Keith curses.   
  
This isn’t good at all. Hunk’s tracks are difficult to follow—the muck has already resettled itself—and he has no idea where his friend has gone. Hunk’s running headlong into danger, of that Keith is certain, but he doesn’t know where Hunk _is._ And for the first time Keith feels the first edges of panic.   
  
His friends are in danger. Pidge is missing, Hunk is being tricked somehow, and he doesn’t even know where Shiro and Lance are. He doesn’t know how much time he has left, or how he can possibly find and save them. He doesn’t even know where to _start_ , but if he makes the wrong choice, he’s positive someone is going to wind up dead.  
  
 _Stop freaking out!_ He berates himself. _You’ll make he wrong decision if you’re panicking, and nobody can afford that!_   
  
But it’s hard to calm. Now that he knows something’s wrong he’s shocked he didn’t pick up on it earlier. This place has been unsettling him from the beginning, but he’d attributed it to the general physical discomfort of the place. Now he knows something else is going on here, and it’s like his instincts are burning inside with the insistence that something is _not right, not right, not right, get out now!_   
  
But he can’t leave, not now. Not with the others in danger. So he wrestles with his instincts and his panic, tries to force it down and think. To his surprise, calm and serenity come to him easily when he focuses on it, wrapping up his mind like a comfortable mental blanket, and he finds thinking a little easier.  
  
He needs to go southwest, obviously. He’s surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. That’s the way Hunk would have gone. He’s certain of it.   
  
He takes a few steps in that direction before he pauses once again. Why that way? It wasn’t that obvious, was it? Something doesn’t make sense about the choice. The tiniest of little embers burns at the back of his mind through that blanket of calm, just bright and burning enough to catch his attention. _Why?_ It asks.   
  
_Why not?_ He counters. _This way is as good a way as any other, isn’t it?_  
  
 _Not if somebody’s life is on the line_ , the little ember insists. _This doesn’t feel right, does it? What’s your gut say?_   
  
He doesn’t know where to go, instinctively. Nothing stands out to him to make him choose that direction over any other. That makes him uneasy, struggling against his enforced calm. He’s not sure; his thoughts are a tangled mess of uncertainty again, struggling with point against counterpoint.  
  
As if they sense his confusion, more of the glimmers in the dark flicker around his peripheral vision, drifting closer. The spectrum of colors they flick through is surprisingly varied, and the way they dance just out of reach in the dark, little trails of color and flashes of light, is captivating. They dance a little closer, just out of reach, swirling here and there all around him and filling his vision with spots of color.  
  
 _This way,_ they seem to say. _Let us help you. Follow our way. We will show you to your friends._   
  
He hesitates, but imagines Pidge in danger, wallowing in the mire and struggling for freedom, begging for help. He sees Hunk, exhausted and collapsed in this dark, stinking place, injured and unable to escape. He can envision Shiro and Lance, wandering forever in the darkness, lost and lonely and afraid until they starve to death, never found. But they know the way. They can find his friends. Lead him to them.  
  
He takes a step forward.  
  
 _Yes,_ the darting energy encourages. They flick out of existence near him, reappear just a little further on. _Yes, that’s it. This way, this way. Quickly, quickly! They are in danger. They are scared. They are hurting. We will help them._   
  
Keith can feel the urgency of it now, scouring away his calm. His friends are in trouble. He needs to help them. He _needs_ to. Something terrible will happen if he doesn’t hurry, so he must—  
  
 _Why? What terrible thing?_   
  
He stumbles in place at the thought. What terrible thing? Why would he even question that? He can’t let anything bad happen to his friends, he has to _hurry_ , he has to—  
  
 _Why?_ the little ember in his mind insists. _Isn’t this strange? Doesn’t this not feel right? Something about this feels strange. Why?_   
  
“Why?” he asks out loud, before he realizes what he’s doing. The sound, the words, the very act of _speaking,_ seem more real than any other thought he’s had since Hunk disappeared. It feels solid. Grounding. “Why? Why am I following you?”   
  
_Your friends are in danger! We will help! Hurry, hurry! Quickly! No time to think, they hurt, they suffer—_  
  
“That’s wrong,” Keith rasps, voice harsh, as he stumbles to a halt in the muck. It almost physically hurts to say, fighting the words free against the urgency and panicked need to _follow_ that he can feel, but it’s the truth. It’s _wrong._ There’s always a chance to think, even instinctively, even naturally. Shiro never rushes in blindly, he always has a plan—  
  
Shiro.  
  
Patience yields focus. He needs focus more than ever. Something doesn’t feel right. His eyes and his heart are telling him something far different than his instincts and his senses. He needs to know what’s lying to him. If he doesn’t, his friends really could pay the price.  
  
He stops, right there in the middle of the swamp, and closes his eyes.   
  
Patience yields focus.   
  
He breathes deeply through his nose, ignoring the scent of rotting vegetation and disgusting slime. Holds that breath inside of him and counts his heartbeats, the way Shiro taught him, before releasing. Again. A third time. And as he breathes, he thinks back to when he found the Red Lion. The concentration he’d used to locate it across Sendak’s ship. The feel of sensing it. The feel of following the Blue Lion into the desert, even unknowingly. The feel of knowing something terrible had happened to the planets the weblum fed on. The feel of knowing, just _knowing_ without conscious thought or action, that something had been wrong on that planet he and Hunk had visited.   
  
He focuses on that sensation. That feeling. That _knowing_. He harnesses it in his own head as he breathes, counts his own heartbeats. And when he’s sure he’s ready, he opens his eyes, and this time he looks—really _looks_ —at the flickering guides in the dark.  
  
He bites his tongue to keep himself from screaming. It’s not a glimmering glow of energy or a harmless flash of light any longer; none of them are. Instead, they’re hideous pulsing _things_ floating in the darkness, disgusting meaty growths with stringy tendrils like brain cells reaching out towards him. They beat like tiny living hearts, and ooze blackened, awful-looking energy like pus, dripping it over the ground. Everywhere the liquid energy touches, the ground hisses, corrupted and stinking. Keith can see the faintest edge of color around them, and realizes with growing horror that they wear the illusions of something pretty and mysterious like a second skin.   
  
Keith chokes, and tastes bile at the back of his mouth. He clenches his teeth and barely keeps from throwing up at the sight of them. Now that he can see them, really _feel_ what they are, their presence is a noxious black infection marring the sense of life in Koristereletrixx. The Silent Heart of Koris is plagued by something rotting, something _evil,_ and their very presence near him makes Keith feel more unclean than vargas of stomping through mud and dirty water ever did.   
  
Oh, god, and his friends are following these things. They don’t know what they really are. They don’t know they’re a danger. They’ll follow blindly to their own deaths because they don’t understand what it is they’re seeing.   
  
He has to act. Now.   
  
The closest of the things flicks near him, and the disgusting brain-cell tendrils stretch towards him further. Keith feels a faint sense of urgency building on his own panic for his friends, and realizes with startling clarity that the feeling isn’t completely his own.   
  
These things manipulate. They compel. They suggest.   
  
_Follow, hurry, your friends are in danger,_ they insist. _Hurry, this way, now!_   
  
But although Keith can feel the urgency it pushes at him, can feel the thoughts it pushes into his brain, any desire to follow it dies right there. He’s suddenly aware, with a sick twist in his stomach, that everything he’s felt since entering this forest may not have been _his._ His desire to go farther into the swamp, his confidence of knowing exactly where Hunk’s gone, the urgency of rushing off to save his friends before it’s too late—too late for _what?_ —has all been forced on him. Hell, even the blanketing calm that came on him so suddenly, to his own surprise—they’d forced that on him too, just to keep him from thinking, to smooth away his doubts.  
  
But he had thought. He _had._ He’d questioned. He’d been confused at his own decisions. Because they weren’t real. They weren’t really _his._   
  
When he’d questioned, _that_ had been Keith. Really _Keith_. Something about himself had let him ask questions, wonder why he just knew these things, felt these things. Hunk hadn’t been able to do it, even when Keith had tried to guide him through it.   
  
Well, fine then. Keith can see things as they are. He knows what the threat really is. He can question it. If he’s the only one that can do that, then he’ll use it to his advantage.   
  
His friends really _are_ in danger. That much he knows. That urgency is real, at least in part. But now—now he knows what the threat really is.   
  
The question is, how does he find the others in time?  
  
 _Hurry, hurry!_ the hideous guides seem to say—though, Keith notices now, never really do clearly _say._ They flick around him, pulsing and oozing, reaching for him to offer suggestions, compulsions, to draw him after. _This way, this way! We will take you to your friends. They hurt. We will help you find them. Quickly, quickly! There’s no time to waste!_ More urgency, more raw panic, more desperation to hurry before it’s too late.  
  
These things don’t realize he’s on to them, Keith understands suddenly. They think they’re still wearing their illusions to him. They’re still trying to manipulate him, even though he no longer has any desire to follow.   
  
The thought of going with them is repulsive enough to make his stomach churn again. The stench of them is terrible, and that rotted, dark energy they dribble from open sores makes his senses hurt with how wrong it feels. But—the others surely had followed these things. If they were being led to the same place, then following them might really lead Keith close enough to rescue them. As long as he can keep his mind clear, and not fall into that confused, easily manipulated state again, he still has the advantage.  
  
And above all else, he has to find them now. He knows none of them will be in a state to protect themselves. They probably can’t figure out how to question what it is they’re feeling. They’ll be helpless. And whatever they think they’re following, Keith is sure they won’t find what they’re seeking at the end of the journey.   
  
He sets his jaw. Although taking the first step forward after those things sets his stomach churning with discomfort and makes him feel physically ill, he follows anyway. At least his mind is clear. At least he’s not trapped in an illusion. For his friends, he’ll risk feeling terrible if it means they stay alive.   
  
He follows the guides.   
  
He follows at a decent pace, trotting as fast as he can through the muck of the swamp, jump-flying over patches of standing water, cutting his way through hanging branches. Keith keeps up his speed just enough to maintain an illusion of urgency, and hopefully mask his real intentions. He’s no good at subterfuge, but his only advantage here is that his mind is freer than the enemy realizes, and the only way to keep that advantage is to hide that he has it.   
  
Fortunately, although the urgency and fear the guides keep slapping his mind with are sensations he can now resist—knowing full well that they come from those hideous, misshapen _things_ —the expression of grim concern and worry on his face is anything but faked. The stories they suggest to him aren’t real, but he’s not stupid enough to think his friends aren’t still in danger. And the closer he gets, the worse he feels too; the pressure of _wrongness_ on his mind seems to get darker and more overbearing the deeper in he goes. He doesn’t like it.   
  
Keith sets his helm to tracing a map of his approximate direction as he runs, and subtly cuts gouges in the bark of trees with his bayard as he passes them, leaving himself a trail. He has no idea where these things intend to lead him, but he suspects anyone who finds them is never supposed to find their way back. It would be just their damn luck that Keith could mount a rescue, just to be lost in this godforsaken swamp forever. The map his shoddy at best, but it can tell him how many paces he moved in what direction. Between that and his markings he should hopefully be able to get everyone out in one piece.   
  
Twenty doboshes into the run, he comes across his first bit of luck. He finds Lance.  
  
Lance is hurrying in approximately the same direction as him. Keith comes across him unexpectedly, circling a pair of massive trees just in time to see Lance’s muddied blue armor in the distance. Lance is moving as fast as he can, although the way he’s stumbling, he’s also clearly exhausted. As Keith watches, Lance falls to his hands and knees in the mud, breathing hard, and it gives Keith a chance to catch up another twenty feet. But then Lance shoves himself back to his feet, arms and legs shaking, and staggers forward again.   
  
No complaints about the slime or dirt coating him. No pause to take a breather, even though he’s clearly on the last of his energy. He doesn’t even notice Keith coming up behind him, even though Keith’s making no attempt to be silent, splashing through muddy water and squelching through slime. He moves like a man possessed, never permitted to stop no matter how much he needs it.  
  
Six of the guides hover around Lance, close enough that Keith feels a cold grasp of dread at his heart. _Don’t you fucking touch him,_ he snarls internally. Lance clearly can’t see them, or he’d be screaming bloody murder, Keith is sure. The thought of that warped, rotting energy touching Lance or any of his friends is enough to make Keith want to vomit, but that wouldn’t be productive.   
  
He’s here now. He can protect.   
  
He can’t see Lance’s face yet, but there are other guides darting farther ahead, taunting Lance to follow ever further. Keith’s not sure what lies they’re telling Lance, but it’s clear Lance is hyper focused on following them, to the point that he’s pushing himself to his absolute limit when he can barely continue.  
  
“Lance!” He hollers, when he’s closer. “Lance, wait up! I can help you.”   
  
“Keith?” Lance barely glances away from the guides ahead of him for half a tick, but it’s enough for Keith to catch sight of his face. He looks awful. His normally tanned skin looks ashen beneath his visor, and his eyes are tight with fear. Whatever these things are showing him, it’s clearly terrifying.  
  
 _“Keith,”_ Lance says, with an edge of relief. “Good, hurry, we gotta hurry—they’re going to kill them, they’re going to die unless we do something, hurry, they’re gonna die—“  
  
“Who?” Keith asks.   
  
Lance doesn’t seem to have an answer for that. He just shakes his head, and rasps, “They’ll _die_ , they’re going to be murdered—can’t let them—they’re _hurting_ —“  
  
“Lance, _who?_ ” Keith asks, as he finally catches up. Lance isn’t moving nearly as fast as he could, and Keith slows to a walk next to him.   
  
Lance gives him a horrified look—and, just like he could with Hunk, Keith sees the tell-tale traces of glazed-over emptiness in his eyes. These things are definitely holding him. Several of the guides hover closer, and Keith keeps watchful eyes on them, wary. He won’t let them get close—if it looks like they’ll harm Lance in any way, he’ll find some way to end every single one of them, even if it costs his advantage.  
  
“What does it _matter?_ ” Lance asks. His voice his hoarse and raspy from yelling, and his expression is alarmed. “They’re going to _die,_ Keith, we have to help them, we have to help them _now_ —“  
  
 _“Lance.”_ Keith circles around and plants himself in front of his fellow paladin, reaching out to put both hands on Lance’s shoulders. He can feel Lance trembling, though whether it’s from fear or exertion, he’s not certain. “ _Listen to me._ Who is in trouble? Who is going to die? If you can answer that question, I’ll help you save them.”  
  
Because he can’t. Keith already knows that. These things are just feeding into his fears, suggesting a reason for him to rush.   
  
Lance stares at him for a moment, but there’s an edge of confusion in his glazed over gaze. The guides flick around him, and after a moment Lance says shakily, “F…family.”  
  
“Your family?” Keith asks, incredulous. “Out here? On Koristrotzan? A planet Earth doesn’t even know exists? In the middle of the swamp?” God, if he really believes that, how badly is Lance in thrall from these things? Lance isn’t this stupid, he’d _know_ that doesn’t make sense if he’d been given even half a second to think it through.  
  
But he’s not permitted to think. Keith can see that in the way his gaze flickers for half a second in recognition, before he loses the fight and slips back under the guides’ compulsion. “I told you Keith, now _please_ ,” he begs, “please help me save them, _please_ , they’re going to die, they’ll kill them, _please_ —“  
  
“Lance,” Keith hisses, “ _It’s not real._ It’s not real, okay? I need you to really hear me on this. Those things you’re seeing are messing with your head. They’re making you think things that aren’t real. Your family can’t be out here. That doesn’t make sense. _Think_ about it!”   
  
“Keith, _please._ ” Lance tries to shove his way forward, but he’s exhausted, and Keith is determined, and he’s pushed back easily. “ _Please,_ not even you can be this cruel—“  
  
“Lance, I’m trying to help you,” Keith says, gritting his teeth. Why is he the only one seeing _sense_ here? Surely pointing out the discrepancies is enough? “This place is _wrong_ , okay? Nothing here is right. There’s something really dark and evil here trying to make people disappear, and you’re next. We need to get you out of here. Now.”   
  
“I’ll save them without you,” Lance says, wild-eyed and frightened. “I don’t need you—I don’t need stupid _Keith_ —I can save them myself—“   
  
Great, and now the guides are playing up that stupid rivalry. Lance tries to push forward again, to sidle around Keith, but Keith refuses to move and keeps a firm grip on his shoulders. “Keith, _get out of the way._ Please! _Please._ That’s my _family_ , I have to save them—“  
  
“Lance. It’s okay. _It’s okay._ Your family is fine. They are _safe_. That is not the issue here. _You’re_ in danger, okay? Something here is making you sick. Trust me—I am an expert. We need to get you out of here.”   
  
“You want to _run?”_ Lance sounds incredulous. “You want to just…just _abandon_ people that are going to die? No. _No._ I’m so sick of you just deciding how things are going to be done and doing your own thing! Get out of the way.” He shoves forward, harder this time, hysteria giving him more strength than before. “Get out of the way. _Get out of the way, Keith_. I’ll save them myself. Move!”   
  
“Lance, we’re not ready for this fight!” Keith snaps. “This isn’t something we can stab or shoot, and you’re not in any condition to tackle it—damn it!” Lance keeps trying to shove past him, not listening; Keith wonders if Lance can even hear what he has to say anymore. “Lance! Snap out of it! C’mon, I need you to snap out of this so you can help me save the others! Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, they’re all in danger— _Lance!_ ”   
  
Lance finally works up the energy to push past, shoving Keith aside. Keith staggers aside, and watches as Lance stumbles forward through the mud, shocked. _Damn_ it. He’d been so sure he could free them if he could just get through to them, but the grip these guides have is so damn strong. Even when he points out the illusions, the _wrongness_ , Lance can’t understand. Why can’t Lance see the difference?  
  
 _There’s only one major difference between you and the other paladins,_ Keith reminds himself grimly. _And it's the same reason the Bermuda planet screwed you up so much and nobody else._   
  
Damn it.  
  
So he’s not snapping any of them out of this. He’s not getting allies. Whatever is doing this, Keith is stuck facing it on his own.   
  
But even so, he can’t let Lance walk away from this. Those guides circle his head like a halo, feeding his terror further, fanning the flames on his panic and fear and keeping him from seeing even the slightest bit of reason. If he walks away now, there’s a strong chance Keith won’t ever see him again alive.   
  
“Fine,” Keith mutters under his breath. “I can’t let you die, Lance. Sorry.”   
  
He’s able to grapple Lance easily from behind, hooking his arms around Lance’s own to pin them before hauling him back. Unlike Hunk, Lance doesn’t have any natural sturdiness, nor does he significantly outweigh Keith. And in hand to hand, Keith has always been Lance’s superior. Lance struggles against him, but Keith is able to keep him restrained easily, dragging him steadily back.   
  
And that’s when Lance starts _screaming._   
  
He howls as Keith drags him back one pace, then two, writhing wildly as he struggles to free himself. For a moment, Keith is sure he’s just struggling to escape. But then Lance makes a strangled sobbing noise, Keith realizes with a burst of alarm that Lance is _hurting._   
  
_“Stop,”_ Lance begs. “Keith, _let me go, let me go, that hurts, please_ —“ He struggles harder against the grapple, trying to free himself and failing, cries becoming more pronounced the farther back he’s pulled.  
  
Keith is stunned. For one horrified moment he wonders if he’s lost his goddamned mind—he’s attacking his friends, he’s _hurting_ them, what kind of monster is he—  
  
— _a Galra monster,_ little voices whisper in his head, _an evil, evil Galra monster—let him go, let him go—_  
  
—but then he recognizes the thoughts as not his own. His grapple is sturdy enough to keep Lance from bolting, but he’s not hurting him in any way, and Lance’s armor absorbs most of the force. Lance has taken worse punishment in training, for goodness sake. And Keith would _never_ deliberately try to harm his friends so cruelly.   
  
Then he catches sight of the floating guides, dancing around Lance’s head closer than ever, gesturing with their little brain-cell tendrils.  
  
 _If they can make you feel fear, and panic, and make it so you can’t think,_ Keith wonders suddenly, _why couldn’t they make you think you were hurting?_   
  
“Get off of him!” Keith snarls at the guides. If he didn’t need both hands to restrain Lance, he’d have already drawn both his blades and struck the things out of the air. “Leave him alone!”  
  
Lance cries out again, a mix of fear and pain both. “—ith, _stop_ , please, _please let me go_ , I need to save them, I— _argh, s-stop_ —“  
  
 _“Lance,”_ Keith tries instead, when the guides make no attempt to back away, “Lance, listen. Listen to me. I’m not hurting you. I’ve just got you in a hold, that’s it. Just like we do in training. Just to keep you from getting yourself killed, okay? I’m not hurting you. These things are trying to make you think I am.”   
  
He pulls Lance back another step. If he can get him far enough away from these things, maybe he can wake up.   
  
But even one step back from the direction Lance is being drawn in seems to cause him agony. His back arches in pain, and he sobs again. _“Keith, let me go, you’re hurting me—“_  
  
Keith curses under his breath. How is he supposed to help his friend, if these things have his friend convinced _he’s_ the attacker? “Lance, it’s the monsters—c’mon, Lance, you’re fine, c’mon, focus, you can do this, you can break the hold— _Lance_ —“  
  
“No! _No!_ Stop, stop and let me go, I have to save them, _I have to go after them, I have to go, I have to go there—“_  
  
“Lance, _listen_ to yourself!” Keith hisses, trying to drag Lance back another step. The guides drift after them. Keith wishes he could risk letting go of Lance for even a second to cut a few down, but Lance is struggling so wildly now Keith’s afraid he’ll hurt himself. “ _Listen!_ Do you even know where you’re trying to go to? Do you understand what you’re saying? It’s not _real_ Lance! They’re messing with you! C’mon, you’ve gotta snap out of it, _Lance_ , c’mon—“  
  
But he doesn’t think Lance even hears him anymore. The guides are driving him into a frenzy, tendrils waving wildly as they take all of Lance’s terror and pain and press it to their advantage. He struggles like a mad thing, and Keith has to secure a stronger grip on him just to keep him from breaking free, locking Lance’s arm behind his back. But it becomes circular—the more Keith succeeds at keeping Lance restrained, the more the guides punish Lance for not breaking free.   
  
_“Stop,”_ Lance sobs. _“Let me go, let me go, I have to save them, I need to go, I need to go, let me go, let me go, let me go—“_ The same mantra over and over, as every other thought is no doubt burned out of his consciousness.   
  
Keith feels sick with dread at the thought of it. “Stop this!” he snarls at the things again, but they ignore him. They’re so far under Lance’s skin and in his mind Keith’s not sure there’s anything he can do to stop them.  
  
 _I can’t protect him from this,_ he realizes with sick horror—horror that’s unquestionably his own. _There’s no way I can risk taking him closer. And if they hurt him just for backing away from the source, I can’t get him out of here. I don’t know how much longer he can take what they’re doing to him before it affects him permanently. This is messing with him too much as it is—_  
  
Lance abruptly wrenches himself sideways, jarring Keith from his hasty thoughts. Keith feels the tension on Lance’s locked arm strained too far, and his eyes widen in alarm. An arm lock like this should have had any sane person staying still as possible to try and minimize the pressure. He tries to adjust the grip, but too late; before he can prevent it, he _feels_ the soft snap-pop of Lance’s arm dislocating from his own flailing.  
  
Lance howls in pain, real and imagined, and screams and sobs as even now, he continues thrashing. “Let me go I need to go let me go let me go _let me go_ —“   
  
_“Shit!”_ Keith actually _does_ let go at that, hands shaking as he releases the grapple without even thinking. God, he’d just hurt one of his own team members, what kind of sick bastard is he, attacking his own like that—he can still _feel_ the way Lance’s arm pops out of alignment and that had been him, all him, _all him,_ like the disgusting evil Galra bastard he is and—  
  
 _—no! No! No, don’t let them get in your head now, Lance can’t afford that! You lose, and he dies!—_  
  
—and he blinks to find Lance stumbling halfway across the clearing. The guides dance around him, brain-cell tendrils writhing. Lance’s eyes are wide with horror and his face is streaked with tears. His right arm hangs precariously at his side, useless. But even so he staggers away like a man possessed, driven on like the hounds of hell are after him.  
  
 _No! No! If he escapes you’ll never see him again alive! He’ll never get to go home to his real family!_   
  
Keith swallows. Then he charges, tackling Lance from behind in a rush. Lance yowls as he’s hit, although Keith tries to make the tackle as gentle as possible, pinning him to the mud so he can’t injure himself again. Lance struggles wildly all the same, trying to escape, screaming in perceived agony again as the guides duck closer and force their will on their pawn.  
  
 _Can’t escape. Can’t go forward. Can’t do this forever._   
  
“Sorry, Lance,” he rasps. “You’ll thank me later. Probably for the best.” And he cracks Lance over the head, once, very carefully. The helmet takes most of the blow, but it’s still enough to knock Lance out. The paladin goes completely limp almost immediately, tension draining from his body and expression going slack.   
  
The guides surge forward, tendrils writhing. But Keith’s not hampered by Lance any more, and he’s _furious_ at these things for messing with his friend. His knife is in closer reach, and he snatches it up instantly, extending it to full blade as he slashes out at the nearest of the creatures. There’s a small, satisfying little pull at the edge as he slices neatly through it, and two severed remains splatter to the ground in the mud. The same happens with the second, and the third. The others try to flee, but Keith doesn’t let them, cutting over and over until all of Lance’s tormenters are dead, tiny little oozing corpses in the mud scattered around his feet.  
  
Keith breathes a sigh of relief, and re-sheathes his knife.  
  
There are others in the woods. He can see the glimmers in the distance. But these ones are gone at least, and it buys him a few seconds of time.   
  
Lance is his biggest concern, but he looks more peaceful now, at least. Hopefully the things those creatures had done to his mind wouldn’t be permanent, and he’d be normal again when he woke up. But he has a feeling Lance won’t really be safe until Keith finds the true heart of the matter. Lance had been desperate to reach someplace implanted in his head, driven to the point of obsession, and Keith’s gut tells him the cause of everything is there.   
  
So he needs to go there. But Lance—he won’t risk taking Lance with him. If whatever is causing this wants Lance there so badly, the safest place for Lance to be is anywhere _but_ the heart of all this.  
  
Keith crouches, and flips Lance over onto his back from his stomach. His dislocated arm looks painful. But Keith is experienced with treating himself for all manner of injuries after living in the desert for a year by himself, and he’s able to pop it back in carefully. It will hold, at least, although he’ll make sure Coran examines it later. Then he latches his arms under Lance’s, drags him over to the nearest tree surrounded by relatively sturdy ground, and sets Lance sitting upright against it, hidden in a small nest of roots.  
  
“Should be fine here, for now,” Keith says out loud…not that Lance can hear him. But hearing his voice reminds him of what’s real, and of which thoughts of his can’t be faked. “I haven’t seen any predators besides those things.”   
  
As an afterthought, he removes the zero gravity lines from his gauntlet, cutting it free with his bayard, and uses it to tie Lance’s arms to the tree. In the event he _does_ wake up before Keith gets an answer, the last thing Keith wants is Lance wandering, vulnerable and unable to protect himself, right into the teeth of the danger. The lines aren’t strong enough to hold forever—they’re designed to pull a paladin to a designated target in  zero G’s—but it should hold for at least a little while.  
  
“Hang in there, Lance,” Keith says when he’s finished, crouching in front of Lance in the mud. “I’ll get the others and take care of everything. Promise.”   
  
And he leaves him there, in the middle of a swamp, and follows the hideous guides further into the dark heart of Koristereletrixx.   
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that can get the most gruesome, as there's some imagery that is vivid and depicts some graphic injury. If you're not into that sort of thing, best to turn back.

By now, Keith knows where he’s going—he only has to follow the trail the guides lead, and he’s sure it will take him to the heart of the matter, and whatever is doing this to his friends. If he’s lucky, it will take him to his friends, too.  
  
But the very act of moving forward feels terrible. The farther into the swamp he presses, the worse the smell gets, and the worse the nauseating feeling in his stomach gets, too. The hideous guides’ suggestions seem to get louder the farther he goes, and he reminds himself out loud now which thoughts are really his.  
  
He is all too aware that the last time he pressed forward towards something that messed with his head so badly, it had almost killed him. If Hunk hadn’t been there to pull him out, he would have died. He could very well be walking to his death, now.  
  
But it doesn’t matter. For the others, it’s worth the risk.  
  
He keeps going, another twenty doboshes at least, cutting marks in the trees to mark his way trying to keep his mind to himself. But he can tell the moment he arrives, because things suddenly feel _darker,_ even though the trees begin to thin. The darting guides flicker ahead of him one last time and vanish suddenly. But before Keith can worry over losing his way, he steps out into the clearing.  
  
It’s a clearing only in the sense that the trees don’t grow thickly here. The ground is still mud-spattered and waist-deep with water in some areas, but there’s a place in the center that looks like it’s made of relatively solid ground, like an island in the middle of the mud. Several tree stumps and fallen logs are arranged artfully there, almost like a dead throne, and suddenly Keith knows where the trees went.  
  
He also knows where his friends went. Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk are all arranged near the throne. Each one stands passively by, waiting quietly, and none of them move or speak when Keith exits the thick cover of the trees.  
  
Keith doesn’t feel relief when he sees them, and he doesn’t call out to them, either. Because they aren’t the only ones in the clearing. Something else waits with them, and he knows without a shadow of a doubt it’s the cause of all their troubles.  
  
There’s nothing remotely humanoid about the thing in the clearing. It’s huge, four or five times the size of any of the other paladins. An almost skeletal man’s torso, and skin stretched too thin over an odd jumble of ribs, shifts into a long snakelike body where its hips should be. What would have been a single snake’s tail splits into at least eight or nine tails instead. It has too-long, too-thin bony arms ending in three fingers and a thumb, each with claws as long as Keith’s own forearm. The overall impression is something like a starved octopus-mermaid crawling on its tentacles on dry land, but this thing has none of the beauty mermaids are supposed to have. Its skin is patchy and scaly, and appears torn or rotted in places, exposing rotting muscle and oozing black energy from within.  
  
But the worst is its face. Its neck is too long to be natural, and its skull sways gently back and forth, like a dancing snake. It has no eyes—just a single, perfectly round, gaping mouth with hundreds of teeth in the very center of its face. Braincell like tendrils, so similar to the ones the hideous guides have, sprout from the back of its skull like dreadlocks, and shiver just slightly in a breeze that doesn’t actually exist. As Keith watches, several of the guides flicker over to hover next to the thing, floating around the creature like a disgusting halo.  
  
If the guides had been hideous, this thing is simply repulsive. But more terrifying still is the way three of its long patched, oozing tails slither and curl around Shiro, Pidge and Hunk like hungry snakes. None of them respond to the way the creature moves around them. It’s like they don’t even notice the thing is even there.  
  
To Keith that’s more terrifying than the sight of the monster itself. Because he can also see the scattered remains of bones, shattered and dirtied, around the throne. And suddenly, it’s all too clear where all the missing villagers have disappeared to. And unless he figures something out _fast_ , his friends will meet the same fate.  
  
The creature’s head turns towards him, and the round, gaping mouth opens and closes once. Keith has the horrifying feeling that even if it’s not seeing him, it still knows he’s there. His stomach churns painfully the moment it focuses on him, and he can tell without a shred of uncertainty that this thing is _old_. Not just decades, not just centuries. _Millennia_. It’s ancient, and it’s dangerous, and it knows he’s there.  
  
Keith fights back the urge to freeze on the spot. He resists the onslaught of anxiety and fear and  the compelling urges of the guides to come closer and submit. _That thing has to die_ , he reminds himself sharply. _It might be the only way to save the others. You need to get close enough to attack. Fake it._  
  
So he stumbles forward across the murky clearing like he’d seen Lance and Hunk do, keeping his eyes on the guides. He doesn’t have to fake the sheer terror and anxiety in his expression that the guides are trying to pelt him with. His very real terror for his friends works well enough for that.  
  
But he barely makes it five feet into the clearing before the creature makes a loud, hissing rumble from its hideous, round mouth, and it speaks. “Don’t bother. I know you that you See, little nuisance. Your attempt at trickery is entertaining, however.” Its voice is harsh and grating, like nails on a chalkboard, and sends a shiver of real fear down Keith’s spine.  
  
Keith freezes as the monster not-exactly-looks at him. Damn it. Clever tricks had never really been his thing. Pidge might have pulled it off, but him…  
  
He needs to find another way out of this, for himself and the others. _Fast._  
  
The creature takes in a deep, rattling breath, and seems to cough. “Tsk. I should have known from the beginning, child of Daibazaal. It is frankly a wonder I didn’t catch the stench of you earlier. Only a part-breed from your scent, but even so, enough to See properly. What a nuisance. Your kind can’t seem to live without being infuriating.”  
  
Keith clenches his jaw at that. “Let them go,” he says, ignoring the creature’s taunts.  
  
“These morsels?” the creature asks, and calmly draws one long, knife-like finger over Pidge’s helmet, hard enough to scratch a line in the green coloration of the helm. She doesn’t so much as twitch. Keith can feel his teeth grind at the sight. His heart starts to pound. “No. I find I’m hungry. I’ll keep them for dinner.”  
  
“Let them go now,” Keith snaps, “Or I’ll—“  
  
“What?” the creature drawls. “ _Do_ go on. What will you do when I have your precious little allies?” It taps the top of Hunk’s helmet, once, twice, three times. Hunk says nothing, even when the claw creeps close to his visor, tapping on it hard enough to make the material crack barely an inch from his eyes.  
  
Keith freezes. Swallows hard against the new wave of fear and anxiety that hits him—some of it feigned from the guides, and some of it very much real.  
  
The creature laughs. “You don’t even know what I am, do you, little child of Daibazaal? How rich. And a paladin of Voltron, too! How delightful.” Its tails writhe around the feet of the paladins, but they don’t even look down at the movement. They only continue to stare blankly ahead, unable to think for themselves anymore.  
  
“Truly fascinating, how quickly mortal memories die. Your predecessors worked so hard to kill my father. The black paladin’s people were truly a thorn in the side of my siblings and I. Well,” it pauses, and delicately, almost lovingly, runs one long knife-like claw up and over Shiro’s neck, tenderly draws a little line of red from his throat. Shiro doesn’t even twitch in protest, or in pain. “The old black paladin, at least. This one is much more agreeable.”  
  
“Leave him alone,” Keith whispers, harsh, but he’s horrified to realize there’s a note of panic in his voice that he can’t manage to conceal. The guides’ terror surges forward in him in a rush, and he shakes at the sudden new onslaught of emotion.  
  
The creature laughs again. “I have some things that are important to you, don’t I, child of Daibazaal?” It turns its hand and gently, so gently, presses its thumb against Shiro’s neck, just under his jaw. The creature’s hand is big enough to encapsulate Shiro’s entire head, helmet and all, and when it presses up and sideways Keith can _see_ the strain on his neck. The tiniest bit more of pressure and his spine will snap like a twig.  
  
And still Shiro does nothing. He stares blankly ahead, docile, obedient, unmoving. His hands remain at his side, not even restrained, and he submits to the pressure of this hideous creature’s thumb without even a protesting noise of pain. And it’s so _wrong._ Shiro would never give in so easily. He would _never_ let something like this manipulate him without trying to fight back. He would never just let himself die without a fight.  
  
And Pidge and Hunk…they’d never let this happen, either. They’re right _there._ Only inches away from Shiro. They could do something, and they would, if they were in the right state of mind to do so. Pidge would come up with a plan. Hunk would rush to try and shield Shiro, somehow. They would do _something._ But the two of them just stand there, just as docile, just as obedient, just as unseeing.  
  
And Keith can’t do anything. If he charges now, it would be so easy for the creature to snap Shiro’s neck. He doesn’t have any range. There’s nothing he can say to break any of them out of it; they’re so deeply in thrall they’ll never be able to understand him. He _knows_ this thing is toying with him, but still, there’s nothing he can do.  
  
“Please,” he rasps, before he can stop himself.  
  
The creature chuckles. “Begging already? For your kind, you are pathetic. What happened to your ambition, child of Daibazaal? Surely your comrades can’t be worth it, even as a paladin of Voltron.”  
  
Keith doesn’t say anything. He can’t.  
  
“I _suppose_ ,” the thing sighs, like it’s making some kind of confession, “that I really should be thanking you and your comrades, of course. After all, you were responsible for driving off your brethren. And I was _so_ hungry while they stayed. Those nuisances never listened to my calls, after all. Filthy Daibazaal blood. A few thousand years is a long time to go without a meal. I’m only just now beginning to take the edge off, but it’s all thanks to you. I _suppose_ in thanks, I can eat you first, so you needn’t watch me feed on your companions.” It slowly takes its thumb away from Shiro’s neck, drawing its claws up and over his helmet and leaving scores in the black coloration. Even so, Keith breathes a sigh of relief when its hands aren’t at Shiro’s throat anymore. “That would be a kindness, don’t you think? A show of gratitude?”  
  
_Maybe. How kind. A show of gratitude. Submit and accept the gift. The pain will be over quickly._  
  
_No! No, it’s toying with you,_ Keith thinks desperately. _Don’t listen! Keep trying to find a way out!_  
  
“And then _again,_ ” the monster continues, “you _have_ been quite a nuisance, little part-breed. Hiding one of my meals away in the swamp.”  
  
_Lance!_ Keith tries to keep his expression from changing. _Give nothing away. Don’t let him know he’s on to something._  
  
But his attempts are useless. The creature holds out a long-clawed hand to the air, and several of the hideous guides settle in its palms, pulsing gently. “My pets know exactly where the little blue meal is hidden, of course, but they can only carry so much. It’s going to be quite a hassle to retrieve that dinner. So perhaps I don’t owe you anything at all. Maybe I’ll make you watch me eat them.”  
  
Keith pales. He glances at his friends, willing them to run somehow, but even when the writhing tails slither away from them they don’t even try. Their gazes are completely blank, unseeing. Shiro is still bleeding shallowly at the neck, but hasn’t made a move to try and stop it. They can’t do anything on their own anymore. They can’t even think to move, or run, or try to protect themselves.  
  
But Keith can’t blame them. The monster itself has admitted its powers don’t work right on him, and yet even he feels like his head is stuffed with cotton, and like the screaming suggestions of the guides are too loud in his head. He feels sick to his stomach, and the dark, roiling energy here that the creature exudes is so awful Keith can practically taste it on his tongue and feel it on his skin. He’s barely holding his own consciousness together. They have to be smothered in in this creature’s influence by now, drowning in its sickening energy and its hunger.  
  
He only hopes it hasn’t already crushed their minds into nothing. He hopes they can survive this, if he can just find a way to save them.  
  
God, he has to find a way to _save_ them!  
  
“No opinion?” the monster asks. “I can be agreeable. My pets don’t make for much conversation. What do you think? Should I eat you first, or last?” Its hideous round mouth opens and shuts once, twice, like a gaping fish. Scenting, Keith realizes.  
  
“Neither,” Keith rasps.  
  
It laughs at him. “Oh? Are you going to kill me? You’re barely on your feet, little child of Daibazaal. Your blood is _weak._ The legacy of your paladin is worthless. You haven’t the strength in you.”  
  
“I don’t care.” And he doesn’t. Hearing this thing so casually discard the worth and lives of his friends makes him angry, but he finds that anger gives him power. The little ember that burned at his thoughts and helped him question in the back of his head grows into more of a blaze, and it helps push back the tide of stifling thoughts the creature and its pets force on him. “You’d better let them go, _all_ of them, unharmed and alive, or I _swear_ I will end you.”  
  
The creature sighs, and sounds almost bored. “Child of Daibazaal indeed. Your blood is weak but your soul is the same as any of them. No subtlety. No tact. Rushing in a blaze of glory and making threats you can’t keep. How tedious. I was hoping this would be entertaining.” It sneers. “Well then, little part-blood, what are you going to do?”  
  
What _is_ he going to do? It’s so close to them, and it’s so deadly, Keith can’t risk striking. He can all but see what will happen if he makes the wrong choice. He can see in his head the way the creature picks up Pidge in one hand and and swallows her whole as she begs for help; he can see it plucking Hunk’s limbs free one by one while Hunk sobs in pain; he can see it drinking the blood and the life out of Shiro drop by drop while he convulses weakly in its hands, unable to fight back. He can see it crushing the life out of them with its writhing tails. He can see it cutting them up with its long, knife-like claws. And always, always, he can see their terrified, pleading faces as they look to him and beg for help, and their betrayed expressions when he never comes to save them because he _can’t_. The thought alone of choosing wrong and costing them those fates is enough to leave him paralyzed in place. The little angry blaze in his head dies, reduced to a sputtering, dying ember.  
  
“How terrible,” the creature says sympathetically, soothing and understanding. “How simply terrible. You fear for them so much, don’t you, little child? You would give your own life for them, if it were an option, wouldn’t you?”  
  
He would. He _would_ , without hesitation. One life to save three is worth it. He wants them to live. That _is_ the right choice.  
  
The creature slithers towards him, graceful and serene, powerful and righteous. “How noble of you, paladin of Voltron,” it says, melodious and compassionate. “I respect your choice. Allow me to help you, then. Come to me, and I will help you see them safe.”  
  
He can feel the creature’s genuine desire to help as it extends its finely manicured hand towards him and beckons him closer. It feels nothing but compassion and respect for the paladins. They had been lost in the swamp—a dark, murky place, so easy to get turned around in—and it had called them and offered to keep them safe. It was strong, so strong, strong enough to protect them all. Keith had been clever, left markings to leave again—if they work together, they can save Shiro and Hunk and Pidge easily.  
  
“Yes,” the creature agrees. “We can save them. And so much more besides. I am very strong. My father fought the one you call _Zarkon_ millennia ago, and knew him for the tyrant he is then. His ilk are deadly. I and my siblings know the truth. I would delight in offering my strength and my services to fight such a heinous creature. All I need is your assistance, red paladin. Come to me. Accept my aid. Speak for me when others might see me as little more than a monster, that I might prove myself fighting for a just cause despite my blood.”  
  
He understands that. It’s cruel to judge when someone only desires to do the right thing, entirely on their bloodlines. No one has control over where they come from, only where they go. This creature should be given the chance to prove itself, just like he himself was.  
  
He takes a step forward.  
  
“Yes,” the creature purrs in agreement, slipping a little closer. Its many long tails play elegantly in the puddles and the mud of the clearing, and curl and slither mesmerizingly about its body. Its odd organic dreadlocks sway as though in a breeze, hypnotic and entrancing. “We have so much in common, child. People don’t see us for what we are, only what we are made of. Neither of us will let that define us…but is it not good, even so, to know where our history lies, that we might break away from it? I am old, little paladin. I know many things from many thousands of years. I can help you uncover the truths of your blood. The truths of your past.”  
  
His past. He _does_ want to know that, he _does_. When Zarkon’s empire is defeated and all of this is over he wants the chance to search for answers in the stars, but…  
  
…but something about the promise makes him frown, anyway.  
  
“Come now, little paladin,” the creature says soothingly, holding out its hand in offering, “There is no need to fear the past. Do you not wish to know about where you came from?”  
  
_“Don’t you wanna know where you come from?” his father asks, solemn, as he stares down at the dark steel blade in his hands._  
  
“You must choose quickly, child,” the creature says, and there’s a note of urgency and concern in its voice now. “I can only protect your friends for so long. You must make the right choice now. If you do not, they could be hurt. Worse, if you make the wrong choice, they may never trust your ability to lead or protect them again.”  
  
And he can tell it speaks the truth. He can feel the urgency, the _need_ to choose quickly, to accept this noble creature’s help, to lock wrists and make the pact. If he doesn’t the others could be injured badly by some threat in the darkness here. Or they might survive, but know how he nearly cost them their lives for want of the right choice. He can see Pidge and Hunk regarding him with cold looks. Can see the disappointment in Shiro’s eyes. The way he turns his back on Keith for putting the others in danger, the way he walks away as Keith watches, ashamed and desperate—  
  
No. _No._ That’s not…that’s not right. That’s not right, it’s not how it…  
  
_You’ve seen that before,_ the little, weak ember in his head whispers. Sickly and exhausted, but not extinguished yet. _You’ve seen this before. You’ve heard this before. You’ve fought this before._  
  
_Hurry,_ a little voice insists in his head. Strong. Urgent. _Loud_. Unrelenting, giving him no time to think. _Hurry, before they turn on you. Hurry before they hate you. Hurry, to find out where you come from. Hurry to save them._  
  
But the little ember in his head says, _No. You know they would never turn on you. Shiro came back for you. You know who you are, no matter where you come from. You know how to save them, and this lying thing can’t help you._  
  
_Knowledge or Death, Keith. This thing lies. Know what’s real. Know where you have succeeded._  
  
“You,” Keith rasps, through harsh, panting breaths, “picked the wrong person to try that on.”  
  
“Come now,” the creature says, voice screeching like nails on a chalkboard, “You must hurry, little pala—“  
  
Keith strikes. His knife is in his hand in seconds, and he slices out with it even as it forms into a sword. The Blade of Marmora cuts through the creature’s outstretched wrist with barely any resistance, and its severed hand flashes through the air, claws gleaming, to splat into one of the nearby puddles.  
  
The creature _howls._  
  
The noise is unlike anything Keith’s ever heard before. Shrill and ear-bleeding, it seems to pierce into his very brain, forcing every hair on his body on end and sending wracking shudders through his entire frame. It hurts on a fundamental level, in his _soul_ as much as his body, but for all that Keith takes it as a victory. The moment it starts screaming any semblance of nobility, compassion and soothing understanding vanishes, and Keith feels the last edges of its frightening manipulation over him ooze away. The little ember in the back of his head burns brightly again, furious and vengeful and bright with truth.  
  
The monster howls and thrashes, and the water splashes and the ground thunders as its many tails slam against the ground over and over. It clutches at its severed stump with its remaining hand, and the wound oozes black, dribbling blood and even blacker energy. Keith throws himself aside and rolls in the muck as one of the hideous thing’s tails slams down at him, before skidding to one knee.  
  
The others! Where were the others?  
  
He spots them, but to his horror, they’re still standing exactly where they had been last, near the throne of rotting trees. They still have the same blank-eyed expressions as before, and none of them attempt to escape, or even to attempt to take shelter from the flailing snake tails.  
  
_But the compulsion dropped for me!_ Keith thinks, horrified and frustrated. _Why aren’t they free?_  
  
He doesn’t have time to dwell on it. One of the flailing tails snaps near them like a whip, and barely misses Hunk’s face by inches. He doesn’t so much as flinch, but already another blindly lashing tail is coming—  
  
Keith doesn’t think further. He fires up his jetpack and blasts his way towards the three, careening into them at full speed. The high-powered tackle knocks them out of the way behind the decaying throne, barely, and the flailing whip-like tail cuts a foot-deep furrow in the dirt and mud where Pidge had been seconds prior.  
  
“Sorry, guys,” Keith gasps. Hunk is sure to have bruises where Keith hit him first, and all three are sprawled haphazardly where they fell. Pidge has collapsed awkwardly on Shiro’s prosthetic, which is sure to cause both of them pain. But he can’t spare more time for them. “Stay here, where it’s safe.”  
  
He’s not sure if they hear him. None of them make any move to leave, anyway; merely lay there like collapsed dolls, staring sightlessly. But if any of them are still in there…  
  
_I’ll save them,_ he promises himself. _I’ll get them back. This thing won’t trick me again._  
  
And he throws himself out from behind the throne, Marmora blade in his right, bayard materializing in his left. He plants himself firmly between his friends and this hideous creature, and glares hatefully at its sightless face.  
  
“Miserable Marmoran _wretch_ ,” the thing snarls at him, all illusory grace and tact lost. Its tails still twitch spasmodically in pain, and its voice is harsher with agony. It still clutches at its severed wrist with its remaining hand. Its brain cell dreadlocks bristle like raised quills. “Every last one of you miserable Daibazaal bastards is supposed to be _dead!_ ”  
  
Keith barely bites back a hiss of surprise at that. _It knows about the Blade? How?_ This wasn’t trickery; he could feel it. The thing was furious, but it wasn’t messing with his head anymore. It recognized him, or at least his sword, and what’s more, it _hated_ him for it.  
  
“I’ve changed my mind,” the thing hisses, finally releasing its stump and flexing its remaining hand and claws slowly. “I’m going to break both of your arms, and then both of your legs. Then I'm going to have you watch me consume each one of your friends. I think I'll even give them just enough awareness to feel every bite, and just enough control back to beg you for help. Such is your punishment."  
  
Keith bares his teeth in a wordless snarl. He doesn’t dignify the threat with an answer. Instead, he lunges.  
  
Keith is fast, but the creature is almost faster still. It dives at him, slithering through the muck like an upright cobra, and slashes out with its remaining gleaming claws. Keith twists and barely manages to parry its strike aside with his bayard, claw to sword, knocking the hand away. The tip of the blade manages to slice into the creature’s palm, but he can feel resistance in its skin, tough and difficult to cut. The creature hisses in annoyance, but doesn’t express agony like it did before.  
  
_The bayard’s cut isn’t as clean as the Marmora Blade,_ he notes. _It didn’t like the Blade, either._  
  
Well, fine then. He’ll use that to his advantage.  
  
The creature slams down at him with one of its many snake-like tails, and Keith hurls himself aside, using his jetpack to get out of the way in time. For a moment, he’s afraid to get too far from his friends, or risk leaving them exposed to the creature. But he needn’t have worried. The monster twists in a writhing mass of whiplike limbs to follow after him, snarling in fury. It’s out for Keith’s blood, and wants him to suffer. It won’t stop until Keith is dead.  
  
_Or it is,_ Keith thinks grimly. He’ll make sure it’s the latter.  
  
The monster slithers forward lightning-fast, and strikes out with three of its snake-tails, forcing Keith to leap-frog between them or risk being crushed. While he’s in mid-air, it howls in victory and surges towards him, striking out with its remaining hand to grasp at his flesh.  
  
It’s smart. It goes for Keith’s bayard-side on the left, knowing its weakness to the Blade.  
  
But Keith’s not stupid, either. And as it lunges, he kicks on his jetpack, twisting sharply. The extra burst of momentum allows him to adjust his direction in midair, and he turns to meet the creature’s striking claws with his right side—and his Marmoran blade. It takes only a tick to reverse the grip, and he lashes out in a jetpack-driven backhanded strike. The Blade slices through the creature’s forearm as though it were only air.  
  
Once again, it _howls_ , recoiling and flailing with its wounded arms and its many tails. “I’ll eat you, Marmoran wretch!” it shrieks at him. “I’ll eat your own heart in front of you! Daibazaal _beast!_ ”  
  
Keith ignores its threats, twisting his body to land on one of the flailing tails, and using its momentum to ricochet off of it to safety. He lands in the mud and brings both blades into a guard  stance, watching the monster writhe in pain. It can be hurt, he knows. It can be vulnerable, especially to his knife. But he doesn’t know how to kill it, and it’s still dangerous to his friends.  
  
The head. That’s probably the best bet. Assuming he can get through the mess of writhing, thrashing limbs to reach the creature unscathed.  
  
_It’s just like the asteroid field,_ Keith thinks, watching the way the creature is always in movement, like a massive knot of constantly shifting tentacles. _Except this time you’re the Red Lion._  
  
_Easy._ Keith actually smirks as he charges forward towards the beast.  
  
He leaps with his jetpack, and hits the first of the lashing tails, using its momentum to kick off into a second. The creature turns, feeling his presence, but Keith is already diving, letting himself drop lower into the tangled mess. Pushes himself off of a third snapping limb. Fires his jetpack to dive through the space created by a fourth and fifth, just in time, before they can snap together and thrash him apart. Slices deep into a sixth tail with the Blade, severing it cleanly, causing the creature to shriek again—then kicks back the way he came while the creature twists for where he had been.  
  
Duck. Dodge. Leap. Spin. Roll. Fly. Cut, and cut again. Never be where it feels him, always move before it finds him. Be an obnoxious little insect, bite and disappear before it discovers him. It wants illusions? It wants mind games? Let it _try_ to find Keith. Let it try to catch him. He moves so fast he barely knows where he is himself. He reacts before he even knows he’s taking action, purely on instinct. He sees movement and every possibility to react before his conscious thoughts even realize he’s only split seconds from death. Threat leads to dodge. Obstacles are to be cut away. Slice it down piece by piece from every direction until it doesn’t know where he is anymore.  
  
And when even that massive beast can’t counter him, for all its size and power, strike to kill.  
  
_Now!_  
  
Keith sees his opening suddenly and doesn’t hesitate to take it. The creature is focused on its left side, searching for where Keith wounded it last, but he’s on its right. There’s the tiniest direct path within bare ticks between Keith, the defensively lashing limbs, and its head. He sees the opportunity perfectly, crystal clear and all but screaming to his instincts.  
  
He takes it. Twists to slam his boots against a flailing limb and kicks off of it. Fires his jetpack for the burst of momentum needed. Clears the flailing set of snake tails without even an inch to spare. Draws back with the Marmora Blade, and _strikes._  
  
The blade stops three inches from the creature’s skull.  
  
Keith’s eyes widen. No! _No!_ He’ so close! He forces the Blade forward, using his jetpack for momentum, but meets resistance.  
  
It doesn’t come from the Blade. With a nauseating twist to his stomach, he realizes it comes from the braincell-like dreadlocks sprouting from the back of the creature’s head—wrapped like hungry boa constrictors around his arms, keeping both Blade and bayard from reaching the monster’s skull.  
  
“No!” he snarls in frustration—and in fear.  
  
The creature cackles, and turns its head to face Keith completely. Its prehensile cell-hair locks his arms in place, as unrelenting as steel. Its face and perfectly round mouth full of razor-sharp teeth press forward within an inch of Keith’s. He can smell its rancid, hot breath and feel it on his skin, see it clouding his visor. Every inch of it oozes fetid energy, and this close Keith barely suppresses the urge to vomit.  
  
“You didn’t think that would work, did you, Marmoran wretch?” it snarls in his face.  
  
Keith tries to wrench back on his hands, or reverse his grip on his Blade or even his bayard to assist. But the creature’s strange brain cell dreadlocks twist further around his armor, gripping like iron. They slither like a dozen living snakes over and up his arms, burrowing beneath his armor, crawling up his torso towards his face. Every touch is accompanied by a whirlwind of feelings he _knows_ aren’t fully his, but with this close contact to the creature his mind is practically an open book to it now. Terror. Agony. Helplessness. Worthlessness. Weakness. So strong, and his mind all but drowns in it all.  
  
“No,” he moans again, and this time it’s a pathetic whimper of fear. “No, I…”  
  
“I believe,” the creature drawls, “that I made you a promise, didn’t I, wretch? Let’s get to it then, shall we?”  
  
Too late, Keith feels one of the creature’s much larger tails wrap around his legs and hips, slithering up to crush painfully at his abdomen, just shy of cracking his cuirass. Before he can even try to kick it off or fight back somehow, the prehensile dreadlocks release him suddenly, and the creature slams him violently into the mud beneath them.  
  
Keith sees stars burst before his eyes when he hits. The mud is softer than packed dirt, but not by much, and the force of hitting so fast and being crushed in the grip of the massive tail is agony. Something in his visor’s readouts crackles and turns into snowy static. He hears ringing in his hears.  
  
The creature lifts him with its tail, and slams him into the ground a second time. Then a third.  
  
Keith’s sure he blacks out for a moment. When his vision returns it’s still full of spots he can’t manage to blink away. He feels dazed, and it takes him a minute to realize his face is pressed to the warm, sticky mud. He can taste it in his mouth, along with the tang of iron. He hurts everywhere, and he’s sure his ribs are bruised at the very least, if not cracked.  
  
The creature lifts him again. _Brace,_ Keith tries to remind himself, although it’s hard to focus. But the creature doesn’t smash him into the ground this time. It lifts him until he’s in front of the monster’s face. He flops, limp and ungainly, over the twist of the creature’s massive tail wrapped around his chest, hips and legs,with his arms and head hanging forward uselessly.  
  
_Get up,_ the little ember in his head insists. _Get up. Fight_. But although the disorientation is starting to clear—slowly—from his head, it’s still swimming, and he feels so sore and bruised he can barely move.  
  
“Not letting go of your toys, I note,” the creature observes with disgust.  
  
Keith blinks. His arms hang before him, and he realizes that despite everything, he still has both Blade and bayard in his hands. His fists clench tightly around them, holding on with sheer force of will and desperation. It hurts—he can feel the tension in his fingers, the strain of refusing to let go tightening his hands into ragged claws. But he won’t relinquish his weapons for anything.  
  
“Not to worry,” the creature says. “I can fix that. I did promise, after all.”  
  
The creature adjusts its grip, forcing Keith upright. A second of its tails, one of the few Keith hadn’t managed to damage in his attack, slithers up and over Keith’s shoulder and curls around his right arm. It stretches the limb out to one side, carefully avoiding the Marmoran blade still in Keith’s grip, and almost gently pulls Keith’s wrist out as far as it can extend.  
  
Then the tail crushes, constricting like a hungry snake. Keith’s eyes fly open wide as he feels the bones in his arm grinding unnaturally, and then with a sick, wet _snap-crunch_ , the limb breaks.  
  
Keith screams before he can stop himself, throwing back his head and howling in agony. His fingers spasm in pain on the Blade, and it’s torment to keep his grip on it when his arm isn’t _right_ anymore.  
  
_Don’t drop it!_ the ember in his mind warns.  
  
It hurts more than anything, but Keith doesn’t.  
  
“One,” the creature drawls, as it withdraws its curled tail from Keith’s arm. Without the limb’s support it sags, and Keith cries out again as the bone shifts and he feels burning-hot agony all over again. But he still doesn’t drop the Blade.  
  
“You do love your toy, don’t you?” the creature observes, harsh and grating, as its tail begins to slither slowly over Keith’s other shoulder towards his left arm. “No matter. It’s not as though you can use it. Poor, stupid Marmoran wretch. Unlike me, without your arms, you’re worthless. Now, I believe I promised you _two_. And then your legs. And then I’ll eat your friends. Which one should go first, wretch? Think about it while I snap your second arm.”  
  
Keith can already feel the pressure of its second tail sliding around his left arm, extending it outright just as gently as the last. He dreads what comes next—but even more than that, he dreads the creature’s question.  
  
_Which one should go first, wretch?_  
  
“None…” Keith pants, harsh and hoarse from screaming. “None of…them…”  
  
The creature stretches his left arm out fully to the side, and begins to constrict again. “Not an option, wretch—“  
  
Keith drops his bayard, and immediately re-summons it. The blade disperses into red light, and then flickers as it reforms—but no longer facing outward. Instead, it reforms backwards, extending down towards Keith’s own arm. The grip is awkward, and it’s not meant to be handled that way in combat. Keith doubts he could maintain it for long.  
  
But he doesn’t have to. As the blade reforms, it slices straight into the constricting tail—and even weaker than the Marmora blade, it still manages to cut direct and deep.  
  
The creature screeches in surprise, and its tail loosens on Keith’s arm as it recoils away from the blade’s sharp edges. Keith immediately tries to shift the bayard’s grip to attack while he has a chance. But the creature’s head surges forward, gaping mouth a bare foot from Keith’s face, and its brain cell dreadlocks whip around to restrain his arm again.  
  
“Little bastard,” it curses, spitting harsh words and rancid breath all over Keith’s face, “don’t think I’ll let you escape so easi—“  
  
Keith summons every ounce of will he has left, and with his broken right arm, slams the Blade of Marmora straight into the thing’s razor-toothed, gaping mouth.  
  
Keith had thought its scream before was mind-piercing, but this is on another level entirely. It’s shriek is unearthly, cutting through silence and soul with violent, razor sharpness. It howls in the deepest level of agony, and the noise reflects Keith’s own suffering. Its tail, wrapped around him still, contracts and spasms frantically in its pain, and Keith screams as it batters and bruises and he feels something in his side snap. It reaches up with its arms instinctively to try and claw at its face, to pull the offensive Blade free, but its hands are gone too at the will of the Blade.  
  
It shrieks again, long, agonized, endless, and flings Keith away frantically, reaching for its face with its remaining tails.  
  
Keith isn’t really aware of falling; just of landing. Some god or force out there is merciful, and he splashes down in one of the deeper muddy puddles of stagnant water. It still hurts as his broken arm and ribs are jarred, and for a moment he panics until his helmet automatically seals against the water and drains. But he manages, with excruciating effort, to drag his way free of the water and collapse on his knees, doubled over and clutching his wounded arm close to his chest.  
  
The creature is still screaming, and still thrashing. The Blade is still lodged in its gaping mouth, but for all its power, for all its arrogance, it seems incapable of removing it. Each tail that touches at the blade seems to burn, oozing black pus and blacker energy. Its prehensile brain cell hair, though dexterous, is sliced free the moment it touches the weapon. It claws at its face with increasing desperation, screaming without pause, and the noise becomes more bubbling and choked the more the ticks pass.  
  
Keith watches silently. He wants to feel fury. Anger. Vindictive satisfaction. But all he feels is exhausted, and numb, mind and body both too wrung out to react further.  
  
The creature’s limbs whip and thrash, and it collapses over onto its side, still clawing at its face. The Blade is still unharmed, but Keith can see its hideous eyeless face beginning to burn as well, and knows it is only a matter of time. All around the clearing, the creature’s guides begin to flutter to the ground, falling like ash to the muck as their master withers. Its tails and severed arms beat at the mud and send sprays of water high into the air.  
  
But these are the death throes of the hideous creature. It’s done. It’s finished. It will never hurt anyone else again. Not the villagers, and not his friends.  
  
_The others!_  
  
It hurts so badly to move, but Keith forces himself to his feet anyway, returning his bayard to its thigh sheath. Cradling his broken arm carefully with his left, he staggers across the muddy clearing towards the throne of dead trees in the center, avoiding the monster’s lashing tails as he makes his way to his friends.  
  
They’re still dull-eyed and staring blankly, just as before. Even in its death throes, Keith can feel the creature’s disgusting taint and the way it clouds his head. The others likely won’t be freed until it’s well and truly dead.  
  
But he can make them comfortable, at least. It hurts a little, but he manages to roll or push each of them until they’re laying comfortably on their backs next to each other, safely away from the monster’s spasms. He adjusts Shiro’s prosthetic so it won’t cause him pain when he wakes, and checks all three of them for injuries. Nothing critical—even the cut on Shiro’s neck is shallow, and has already stopped bleeding.  
  
Keith lets out a shaky sigh, and sits down weakly with his back against the dead throne, between the creature and his friends. He cradles his broken arm in his lap. And he waits.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's now some gorgeous artwork for this piece! Check it out here:  
> http://velkynkarma.tumblr.com/post/173594601073/harseik-i-got-a-brand-new-voltron-legendary


	4. Chapter 4

In the end, it takes almost ten doboshes for the creature to die. Its deadly thrashing drums at the earth so heavily at first that Keith can feel it in his chest and in the ground beneath him, jarring at his broken ribs. But then it slows to frantic, pained spasms, and then to feeble twitching, until the only way Keith knows it’s still alive is by watching it.   
  
But he knows the moment it truly dies. He can feel it, in the way the dark, sickly miasma that hangs oppressive and disgusting over this place suddenly vanishes. There’s still an oily sort of residue in the swamp that Keith is distantly aware of at the back of his head, but even that, he thinks, might clean away with enough time.   
  
The darkness in the Silent Heart of Koris is finally gone.  
  
There’s a soft _pop_ in Keith’s ear the moment it’s dead for good, and several of the sensor readouts on Keith’s visor suddenly come back online. _You’re the reason nothing ever worked_ , he realizes, staring at the corpse of the monster. In death it is finally still, twisted on its side with its severed arms stretched out before it, snake tails slithering down into the deeper puddles and vanishing into the depths of the water. Its head tilts unnaturally towards the humans, and Keith can still see his sword rammed deep into the creature’s toothy mouth.   
  
“Oooh,” Hunk moans behind him. “I do not feel good…”  
  
Keith forgets all about the monster, and turns quickly to face his friends, wincing when the abrupt movement pulls at his ribs and arm. “You’re awake!”  
  
“Awake?” Shiro asks, frowning. He sits up slowly, and stares at the dirt and mud caking his hands when they squish as he pushes himself up. “What…were we unconscious?”  
  
“Where _are_ we?” Pidge asks, bewildered. She levers herself up as well, and stares at the partial clearing in the swamp and the massive dead throne they’re hidden behind.  
  
“You don’t remember?” Keith asks. “None of you?” He looks around at all of them, surprised. None of them had been asleep or unconscious. He’d thought for sure they’d remember something.   
  
But Shiro and Pidge both shake their heads. “Last I remember we were looking for those missing civilians,” Pidge says. “I thought I saw some and started following, but then…” She shrugs.  
  
Hunk ignores the question entirely. He’s found some of the scattered bones in the dirt and mud, and yelps, “Are those _real?_ ”   
  
“Yes,” Keith answers grimly. “They’re probably those civilians. They—“  
  
“What is _that?_ ” Hunk interrupts in a panic, staring over Keith’s shoulder at the creature. Pidge and Shiro follow his gaze, and their eyes widen. Pidge scrambles back with a yelp, and while Shiro outwardly keeps his calm, Keith doesn’t miss the way he pales slightly.  
  
“ _That_ is dead,” Keith says. When Hunk doesn’t look reassured, he reaches out his unbroken hand with a wince, and places it on Hunk’s shoulder. “Seriously. I promise. It won’t hurt you guys any more.”   
  
“But it hurt _you,_ ” Shiro says, eyes lighting on Keith’s broken arm.   
  
“And it sounds like it _had_ been attacking us,” Pidge says, frowning. “And where’s Lance? Oh, god…” Her eyes go wide with horror. “It…it didn’t—“  
  
“Lance is safe,” Keith assures hastily. “I got to him before that thing did. It’s…it’s a _long_ story, and…”  
  
 _And I’m so damn tired,_ he doesn’t quite say. _And getting close to passing out._ He can feel the sharp, throbbing sensation in his arm and ribs getting steadily stronger now that he doesn’t have to force it down for the others’ protection anymore.  
  
“If you say it’s not a threat, that’s enough for me for now,” Shiro says, taking charge once more. _Thank god,_ Keith thinks to himself. “Let’s get you taken care of and get the hell out of here. We can debrief once we get back to the ship and everyone’s been healed.”   
  
Getting out is easier said than done. With their technology no longer being interfered with by the monster, Keith is able to transmit his partial map to Pidge for navigation, and he explains how he’d also marked the trees to find his way back. But even so it’s going to take vargas to escape, and Keith’s not so sure he can keep moving for that long on his own.   
  
“We’ll have to splint the arm,” Shiro finally decides. “It’s going to hurt to set, but it will keep further injuries from happening while we work our way out.”   
  
Shiro isn’t wrong; it _does_ hurt like hell to set. The three of them work together to cut a suitable branch from the trees and a strong vine-like material to tie it with, and to remove Keith’s armor to set it better. They’re as gentle as they can be, and work quickly and efficiently. But even so, forcing the bones back into place is like being stabbed with a white-hot blade. Keith can’t quite keep himself from screaming, and he thinks he may have blacked out for a few ticks. He can hear Hunk’s frantic “sorry Keith, sorry Keith, sorry—“ and Shiro’s “You’re fine, you’re doing just fine, Keith, almost done—“ over and over as they work.   
  
But they let him rest for several doboshes when it’s over, trying to recover his strength. He sits wearily against the dead throne, flopped against Hunk’s shoulder on his left side for support, trying his hardest to not pass out. His now-splinted right arm rests awkwardly against his side, but there’s nothing at all they can do for his busted ribs, and the very act of breathing hurts.   
  
He watches as Pidge starts expanding on his meager maps for navigation. He feels momentary alarm when Shiro heads for the monster’s head, even though he _knows_ it’s dead, and it spikes to panic when Shiro actually crouches next to it and sticks his Galra hand in its mouth. But he calms a moment later when he pulls it free with Keith’s  Marmoran weapon—already shrinking to knife form again—in his hand.   
  
“Here,” Shiro says, as he returns with it. “You did quite a number on that thing. You don’t have to talk about it now, but I don’t have to know the details to know you did a great job protecting us.” He slides the knife carefully into Keith’s waist-sheath for him, and gives him a reassuring pat on the left shoulder. Keith grunts in acknowledgement, too tired to do much else.  
  
He’s just trying to summon enough energy to stand so they can leave when there’s a crackle over the radio, and Lance’s voice groans in his hear, “Oh, _ow._ Ow, my head is _killing_ me. Where…what…?”  
  
“Lance!” Hunk says in relief. “You’re alive! And…on the comms. I thought comms weren’t gonna work for this mission?”  
  
“That thing did it,” Keith half slurs, nodding towards the dead creature.   
  
“Thing?” Lance asks. He whines in pain a moment later. “Never mind. Don’t care. _Ow_ , my head. And…I’m…I’m tied to a tree? Why am I tied to a tree again? Why does this keep _happening_ to me?”  
  
“Sorry,” Keith says, wincing. “That’s my bad.” He tries to push himself up with one hand, and when that fails, Hunk helps him to his feet.   
  
“ _You_ tied me to a tree?” Lance asks, incredulous. “Why? You don’t need to steal my Lion. You have Red.”  
  
“Had to save your life,” Keith answers, slurring again. “You were gonna walk off and die.”  
  
“What? Does _anyone_ know what he’s talking about? And is anyone gonna come get me?” The last part comes out as a pained whine again, and Keith winces. That had been all _his_ fault, even if it had been to save Lance’s life.  
  
“We’re coming to get you right now, Lance,” Shiro cuts in, confident and reassuring. “Just hold tight. Keith marked your location on his tracking map. He’s injured, so it may take us half a varga or so to get to you.”   
  
“He’s hurt?” Lance asks. The accusation in his voice vanishes, to be replaced by concern. “Is he gonna be okay?”  
  
“He’ll be fine,” Shiro promises. “Hang on, we’re coming now.”   
  
Keith is sure they are, but the first step forward he takes ends with a dizzying sway that nearly sends him flat on his face again. Hunk steadies him, and asks, “Are you sure you can do this, man? I can carry you if you need. You really don’t look good.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Keith insists. He takes another step forward, and this time the world seems to melt around him as another dizzying wave of exhaustion hits him. He sags. He’s vaguely aware of Hunk’s hands on him again, and of Shiro’s shout, and Pidge’s and Lance’s worried voices in his ears. But then everything goes black, and he sinks into peaceful, pain-free oblivion.

* * *

  
  
He wakes in a cryo-pod, with the entire team waiting for him. Shiro helps him stumble out of the pod while the rest offer relieved grins and welcome him back to consciousness. It takes a few minutes for him to fight off the sleepy haze induced by the pod’s after-effects, and by then he gathers from the others’ chatter that he’s been in the pod for nearly a quintent.  
  
He changes back into standard clothes from the healing suit, and meets them in the dining hall, where Hunk insists he eat something. “The pods always have me starving when I get out,” he says, as he places a big plate full of food in front of Keith. It’s full of the things Keith prefers, and he digs in without needing much more encouragement.   
  
The others sit around the table, chattering amongst themselves and watching Keith eat. He doesn’t really like being stared at, but he’s too hungry to really care.  
  
Besides, he knows what they’re all waiting for. Over a day of knowing there was a massive monster that had seriously injured Keith and left them not remembering anything? They’ve got to have questions. A lot of them.  
  
But they don’t bother him while he’s eating—although Keith suspects that has a lot to do with Shiro’s and Coran’s significant looks than with their own personal restraint. He can practically see Lance twitching with the effort of holding in his questions about _why_ he’d woken up tied to a tree in the middle of a swamp, and the others aren’t much better at concealing their interest. Even Allura, who hadn’t been on the mission at all, looks greatly intrigued by the results.  
  
So at last, Keith pushes away his meal, and as the mice set upon the scraps he says, “Okay. What do you want to know?”  
  
 _“Everything,”_ Lance answers immediately. “What the heck _happened?_ ”  
  
Shiro gives Lance a pointed look, and then says more patiently to Keith, “How about you just tell us what you remember from the mission.”  
  
“I’m the only one that remembers anything, from the sounds of it,” Keith says. But he obliges, starting from the beginning. He explains how Pidge disappeared, how Hunk had acted so strangely, how he’d seen the things they were chasing for what they were. How he’d been forced to restrain Lance in order to save him, or risk having him wander off to his own death. How he’d found the others deep on the thrall of the swamp creature, and how he’d been forced to fight it to save them.  
  
He doesn’t go into detail about what the creature showed him, though. “It almost tricked me too, a few times,” he says, and leaves it at that. The others know better than to question, but based on the knowing look Shiro gives him, he thinks one person, at least, knows what images and feelings the creature fed him.  
  
“That’s really scary,” Hunk says, when Keith finishes. “That’s _really_ scary, that it could just mess with us like that and we didn’t even know…” He swallows, and gives Keith an understanding look. Keith can read it all too well, after their shared experience on Bermuda Planet. N _ow I know what you were going through back then. Thanks for saving me._   
  
“I’m just glad it didn’t have any lasting effects,” Keith admits. “You were all…different. Really different. I was afraid that maybe…”   
  
“We’re fine,” Shiro says. “Honestly, Keith. We’re all okay thanks to you.”  
  
Pidge nods in agreement. “We traded stories while you were healing,” she explains. “Honestly? None of us remember a thing. It’s a little freaky to have a couple vargas of our memory blanked out, but none of us got seriously hurt, and we’re all alive.”   
  
“Maybe.” Keith sighs. “Well, mostly. Lance—I do need to apologize to you.”  
  
Lance stares at him. “What for?”  
  
Keith gives him an incredulous look. “I dislocated your shoulder. The headache you had when you woke up was because I knocked you out. And I bound you to a tree for hours. I did it to save your life, but I still attacked and harmed a team member. I’m sorry for that.”  
  
“What, this?” Lance casually rolls his right shoulder and lifts his arm up and down a few times, displaying full range of movement. “Please. Coran had it fixed in like ten ticks. And I’ve got a hard head. I get it, man, now that I heard what happened. If you hadn’t I could’ve wandered off and nobody’d ever see me again.”   
  
“I fought the monster anyway,” Keith says. “I probably didn’t need to go that far.”  
  
“You didn’t now that when you stopped me,” Lance says. “I know you got all these weird heeby-jeeby mind powers from turning Galra—“  
  
“I didn’t ‘turn Galra’!” Keith snaps indignantly. “And that’s not what happened!”  
  
“—but it definitely didn’t give you future-reading powers,” Lance finishes, ignoring him, “so thanks for saving my life. I’m glad I’ll get to go home one day to my _real_ family.”   
  
He shudders a little at the end, and Keith sobers. Whatever fear the creature had shown Lance had been very real and very personal, and even if Lance doesn’t remember a bit of it, it had been a cruel trick to play all the same.   
  
“Okay,” Keith says finally. “You’re…welcome, I guess.”  
  
Shiro smiles at him, and offers a reassuring pat on the arm. “You did a great job, Keith,” he repeats. The underlying message, _you did a fantastic job taking charge and I knew I could trust you with the role,_ is clear as day to Keith even if he doesn’t say it. “Everyone is safe. You even found the reason people were disappearing, and managed to get rid of it. The Korissites should be safe from now on.”  
  
“Maybe…” Keith frowns, and turns to regard Coran and Allura. “But I don’t think the overall problem is gone. It was old…thousands of years old. It said its father had fought Voltron before. And that its siblings had fought Zarkon. It knew us as paladins. It even knew the Blade of Marmora. What…what _was_ that thing?”  
  
“I’m not sure,” Allura admits. “I’ve never heard of my father fighting anything like that before. Voltron fought many kinds of monsters after my father created it, but never something like that, at least as far as I can recall.”  
  
Coran shakes his head as well. “It doesn’t strike me as familiar, either,” he says slowly. “The way you describe it, the creature sounds a bit like one of the forms the void-beast took, back when King Alfor and the others first formed Voltron.”   
  
“It was dripping with all kinds of dark energy when I fought it,” Keith says slowly. “Maybe that void-thing is what it meant.”   
  
“Whatever it was, it doesn’t like the Galra,” Allura says. “Daibazaal was Zarkon’s original home planet. And it sounds like the creature was unable to act or hunt for itself as long as Koristrotzan was occupied by the Galra.” She shakes her head, guilt in her expression. “In driving the Galra away, we inadvertently released the creature.”  
  
“And you said it mentioned siblings,” Pidge says with a frown. “If this…void-beast had offspring, this thing wasn’t the only one. Every time we liberate a planet, there’s a chance we could let one of these things out to prey on other people.”  
  
Keith feels sick to his stomach at fighting another one of those things. Based on the expressions on everyone else’s faces, they feel much the same way.  
  
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Shiro says finally. “It’s a good idea to keep in mind that there’s another threat besides the Galra we’ll need to keep an eye on. And if we receive reports like this in the future we’ll need to bear in mind that another of these things could be at work.” He glances at Keith. “It might be a good idea to check with the Blade of Marmora as well. If this creature knew them, there’s a chance they know it as well.”   
  
It’s possible, Keith concedes. Certainly his Blade had been practically tailor-made to fight the creature. He wonders if the Blade was ever meant to do anything else besides try to remove their own emperor from power. “I’ll ask Kolivan when we see them again,” he agrees.  
  
“Good.” Shiro nods. “But for now, we’re okay, and our mission is completed. We’ll take another quintent for recovery, and then Coran and Allura have isolated some new planets that need our assistance and would be willing to join the Voltron Alliance. Training starts tomorrow again, first thing in the morning. The time is yours until then.”  
  
The team nods and begins to disperse, chattering amongst themselves as they head off to handle various tasks. It leaves Keith sitting at the table quietly. It takes him a moment to realize Shiro hasn’t left, either.  
  
“You look beat,” Shiro says. He nudges Keith gently. “Try to get some rest, okay? The pods take it out of you. And so do other things.”   
  
He gives Keith a pointed look.   
  
“I’ve got a lot more questions than when I started, before this mission,” Keith admits. “Some of the things that creature said, or showed me…about me, about the Blade…”  
  
“And you’ll find the answers eventually,” Shiro promises. “Trust me. I know it’s hard. It’s frustrating. But you’ll get there. And in the meantime, all you can do is whatever you can. Yesterday you stepped it up and saved everyone, regardless of what that thing said or did. I’m proud of you for that. Questions or not, you should be proud of yourself, too.”   
  
“Yeah…” Keith says, slow and considering. “Thanks, Shiro.”   
  
“Any time,” Shiro says. He finally gets up from his own seat and places a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “And I’m always here if you want to talk it over more. Now seriously—get some rest and take it easy, okay? You’ve got a right to take a breather after all that.”   
  
Keith smiles a little. “Yes, sir,” he says.   
  
Shiro ruffles his hair once as he finally turns to leave. Keith feels a little better for it. He hadn’t lied—he’s got questions aplenty, and nightmarish visions that he out of all of them can’t ever forget. But Shiro hadn’t been wrong, either. He’ll find the answers eventually, and Shiro and the others are there to back him up if he needs it.  
  
In the meantime he’ll do whatever he can, and somehow that feels like exactly enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed, and Happy Halloween~


End file.
